RAUTAHAT, Oct 2: What were 120,000 Nepal government excise stickers doing in the hands of smugglers crossing the Nepal-India border?
The question has emerged after the Armed Police Force seized a large consignment of excise stickers being smuggled into Nepal from India, raising concerns over the security of a system directly linked to the government’s revenue collection.
The stickers were seized near Tejapakad in Paroha Municipality-3 of Rautahat by a team from the Armed Police Force Border Outpost, Sarmujawa.
According to Superintendent of Police Chet Raj Joshi, chief of APF Nepal No. 11 Battalion, smugglers carrying the materials from India on their heads abandoned the consignment and fled after seeing the security personnel.
When the abandoned materials were checked, they were found to be excise stickers apparently issued by the Inland Revenue Department. The stickers were subsequently handed over to the Inland Revenue Office in Simara for investigation and necessary action.
The seized materials comprised six rolls, with around 20,000 stickers in each roll, according to the APF.
Excise duty stickers on beer bottles soon
The stickers are reportedly meant for 50 UP, 180 ml bottles of alcoholic beverages. At an excise duty rate of Rs 88.20 per sticker, the total excise duty represented by the 120,000 stickers amounts to around Rs 10.584 million.
But the seizure raises a question that goes beyond the value of the stickers themselves: how did Nepal government excise stickers end up being smuggled from India into Nepal?
And if the stickers turn out to be counterfeit, how were such a large number produced to resemble official government stickers?
A small sticker with a big role
Excise stickers are an important part of Nepal’s tax administration for alcoholic beverages and other excisable goods. They are affixed to bottles after the prescribed production and tax procedures have been completed, linking the products to the system for monitoring and collecting excise revenue.
That makes the security of these stickers particularly important.
Any unauthorized use of genuine stickers—or the production and circulation of counterfeit ones—could allow untaxed or illegally produced alcohol to enter the market. It could also put legitimate manufacturers, which pay excise duty, VAT and other taxes, at a disadvantage.
The seizure therefore has implications beyond a single case of cross-border smuggling.
Where did the stickers come from?
If the seized stickers are genuine, the investigation will have to determine how they escaped the government’s control and ended up outside Nepal before being smuggled back into the country.
That could raise questions about every stage of the sticker supply chain, from production and storage to distribution, record-keeping and use by alcohol manufacturers.
If they are counterfeit, investigators will face a different but equally important question: how did a network manage to reproduce government excise stickers in such large quantities?
The answers could reveal vulnerabilities in the country’s tax administration system.
The APF’s calculation of Rs 10.584 million represents the excise duty associated with the seized stickers, not necessarily the actual revenue loss suffered by the government.
Whether the stickers were intended for use by an alcohol producer, for illegal alcohol production or for another purpose remains to be established.
If all 120,000 stickers were used on 180 ml bottles, however, they could potentially be linked to a substantial volume of alcoholic beverages entering the market.
Against the backdrop of persistent cross-border smuggling of goods and alcohol, the seizure has added a new concern for the authorities: the possibility that even the stickers meant to prove that taxes have been paid could themselves become part of the illegal trade.
