Direction générale des Douanes et Droits indirects

Since January 1, 1993, the Customs Department has taken charge of the indirect taxation sectors, previously carried out by the General Directorate of Taxes. Its role is both economic and fiscal.
 
Concerning its economic role, the objective is twofold: consumer protection and market regulation. For this, the Customs administration applies various provisions: Council Regulation (EC) No. 1234/2007 of 22 October 2007 and then No. 1308/2013 of the Parliament of 17 December 2013, on the common organization of agricultural markets ("Single CMO"), the relevant articles of the General Tax Code and finally the Rural Code and specific national texts.
 
Thus, the regulation of production is based on an assessment of production capacity obtained by statistical processing of harvest and stock declarations, management and control of declarations of grubbing-up, planting and changes in the structure of winegrowing operations as well as the grape varieties of the plots of vines operated. The qualitative regulation of the product aims at controlling the manipulations and oenological practices prohibited (wetting, vinage, discoloration of red wines, addition of various products...) or authorized but framed (addition of sugar or concentrated musts within the legal limits, fining, various treatments...). The producers' cellars are controlled by the customs agents on the basis of the registers provided for by the texts (registers of handling, entry and exit of wines and certain oenological products). These controls are followed by analyses carried out in the joint customs and fraud laboratories.
 
Since 2007, the Customs administration has carried out a major modernization of the computerized vineyard register (CVI) which it is responsible for managing, allowing each registered winegrower not only secure access to his personal data via the Customs Internet portal reserved for professionals (https://pro.douane.gouv.fr), but also an online filing of the main declarations (harvest, stock, oenological practices, etc.)
 
Also with a focus on quality, the Community authorities have introduced wine services, which require winegrowers to provide a quantity of alcohol determined by distillation of the by-products of winemaking (marc and lees), intended to avoid over-pressuring these by-products. To this end, individual notifications are sent annually to the operators concerned and cleared on the basis of implementation statements provided by the distillers.
 
The measures to regulate the wine market take the form of compulsory or optional distillation, assistance for the restructuring and conversion of vineyards, promotion or investment to improve wine-making infrastructures or marketing instruments.

In this area, the customs administration is mainly involved in certifying, prior to the payment of aid, that Community obligations have been met (AROC) and in subsequently checking the reality of the volumes destroyed (distillation).
 
Finally, the specific regulations for AOC wines require compliance with authorized yields and notification of distillation obligations for volumes produced in excess of authorized yields (DRA).

From a fiscal point of view, wine is a product subject to VAT and to the circulation duty provided for in article 438 of the General Tax Code when it is placed on the national market.
 
The movement of wine is subject to regulations that require the use of an accompanying document, a fiscal document that also allows for the verification of the conformity of the transported shipment with the statements of the declarations made.
 
In an effort to modernize and harmonize national and Community regulations, the administrative formalities required for the removal and movement of products subject to excise duty have been reduced. Thus, Community administrative documents (DAA or DSA) have been introduced, which can now be validated at home, particularly by electronic means. The electronic accompanying documents (DAE) covering movements between professionals under suspension of excise duty, made to other EU Member States, must be drawn up and validated by the GAMMA system*, the French version of the EU application EMCS (Excise Movement and Control System).
 
In order to monitor movements and stocks of products subject to excise duty, operators are required to keep stock records, in accordance with the requirements of EU Regulation 436/2009 (input-output register), as well as to submit a monthly activity declaration with monthly payment of duties and taxes due, which will also be dematerialized.
 
In terms of resources, the customs administration relies on two types of services:

• services with national competence, such as the specialized offices of the General Department of Customs, departments with special competence (Customs Computer Center, Customs Investigations Department, a network of specialized laboratories shared by DGDDI/DGCCRF);
• external services with territorial competencies under the authority of regional and interregional directors, which include specialized winegrowing services, responsible for managing the vineyard register and controlling operators in the entire winegrowing sector (producers, traders, distillers); customs offices that control imported or exported wines, a secondary network of local receipts, which receive monthly declarations from operators; and finally, surveillance services that carry out controls on traffic.

 

 

 

*Translator's notes:
- DGCCRF: General Department of Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control. Equivalent to CMA (England) or FTC (United States).
- GAMMA:  in french, Gestion de l'Accompagnement des Mouvements de Marchandises soumises à Accises means Management of the Accompaniment of Movements of Goods under Customs Duties.