Council Regulation (EU) No 389/2012Show full title

CHAPTER III U.K. EXCHANGE OF INFORMATION WITHOUT PRIOR REQUEST

Article 15 U.K. Mandatory exchange of information

1. The competent authority of each Member State shall forward to the competent authorities of all other Member States concerned, without prior request and by means of regular or event-driven automatic exchange, the information necessary to ensure the correct application of legislation on excise duties, in the following cases:

(a) where an irregularity or an infringement of legislation on excise duties has occurred, or is suspected to have occurred, in another Member State;

(b) where an irregularity or an infringement of legislation on excise duties which has occurred, or is suspected to have occurred, in the territory of one Member State may have repercussions in another Member State;

(c) where there is a risk of fraud or a loss of excise duty in another Member State;

(d) where the total destruction or irretrievable loss of excise goods under a duty suspension arrangement has occurred;

(e) where an exceptional event has occurred during a movement of excise goods within the Union, which is not provided for in Directive 2008/118/EC, and which may affect the calculation of liability to excise duty of an economic operator.

2. An authority which has forwarded information to another authority under paragraph 1 may request that other authority to provide feedback on the follow-up action taken by it on the basis of the information provided. If such a request is made, the other authority shall, without prejudice to rules on secrecy and data protection applicable in its Member State, send such feedback as soon as possible, unless that would impose a disproportionate administrative burden on it.

3. Where the information referred to in paragraph 1 relates to a movement of excise goods within the Union, the information shall be forwarded using a mutual administrative assistance document, subject to paragraph 4.

However, where the use of that document is impractical, the exchange of information may, exceptionally, be carried out in whole or in part by other means. In such cases, the message shall be accompanied by an explanation of why the use of the mutual administrative assistance document was impractical.

4. Where the computerised system is unavailable, the fall-back mutual administrative document shall be used instead of the document referred to in paragraph 3.

5. The Commission shall adopt implementing acts to determine:

(a) the exact categories of information that shall be exchanged under paragraph 1, which shall, in respect of natural persons, include data such as their name, surname, street name, street number, postcode, city, member state, tax or other identifier number, product code or description and other connected personal data, when available;

(b) the frequency of regular exchange and the time limits for event-driven exchange under paragraph 1 for each category of information;

(c) the structure and content of the mutual administrative assistance documents;

(d) the form and content of the fall-back mutual administrative assistance document;

(e) the rules and procedures relating to the exchanges of the documents referred to in points (c) and (d).

The Commission may also adopt implementing acts to determine the situations where the competent authorities may consider the computerised system unavailable for the purposes of paragraph 4 of this Article.

Those implementing acts shall be adopted in accordance with the examination procedure referred to in Article 35(2).

Article 16 U.K. Optional exchange of information

1. The competent authorities of the Member States may forward to each other, without prior request, by means of spontaneous exchange, any information necessary to ensure the correct application of legislation on excise duties of which they are aware and which exchange is not covered by Article 15.

To that end, they may use the computerised system where the system is capable of processing such information.

2. An authority which has forwarded information to another authority under paragraph 1 may request that other authority to provide feedback on the follow-up action taken by it on the basis of the information provided. If such a request is made, the other authority shall, without prejudice to the rules on secrecy and data protection applicable in its Member State, send such feedback as soon as possible, unless doing so would impose a disproportionate administrative burden on it.

3. The Commission shall adopt implementing acts to determine:

(a) the structure and content of the mutual administrative assistance documents to cover the most common types of information referred to in paragraph 1;

(b) the rules and procedures relating to the exchanges of the mutual administrative document.

The Commission may also adopt implementing acts to determine the structure and content of the feedback referred to in paragraph 2.

Those implementing acts shall be adopted in accordance with the examination procedure referred to in Article 35(2).

Article 17 U.K. Obligation of Member States to facilitate exchanges of information without prior request

Member States shall take the necessary administrative and organisational measures to facilitate the exchanges provided for in this Chapter.

Article 18 U.K. Limitation of obligations

Member States shall neither be obliged to impose, for the purposes of implementing this Chapter, any new obligations on persons in respect of the collection of information, nor to bear any disproportionate administrative burden.