Article 19

1. The tax authorities of the Member States shall be informed by traders of deliveries dispatched or received by means of the document or a reference to the document specified in Article 18. This document shall be drawn up in quadruplicate: one copy to be kept by the consignor, one copy for the consignee, one copy to be returned to the consignor for discharge, one copy for the competent authorities of the Member State of destination. The competent authorities of each Member State of dispatch may provide for the use of an additional copy of the document for the competent authorities of the Member State of departure. The Member States of destination may stipulate that the copy to be returned to the consignor for discharge should be certified or endorsed by its national authorities. Member States applying this provision must inform the Commission which shall in turn inform the other Member States thereof. The procedure to be followed with respect to the copy for the competent authorities of the Member States of destination shall be adopted in accordance with the procedure provided for in Article 24. 2. When products subject to excise duty move under the duty-suspension arrangements to an authorized warehousekeeper or to a registered or non-registered trader, a copy of the accompanying administrative document or a copy of the commercial document, duly annotated, shall be returned by the consignee to the consignor for discharge, at the latest within 15 days following the month of receipt by the consignee. The copy to be returned must contain the following details which are required for discharge: the address of the office of the tax authority for the consignee; the date and place of receipt of the goods; a description of the goods received in order to check whether the consignment tallies with the details contained in the document. If it does, the note 'consignment checked' must be added; the reference or registration number issued, where appropriate, by the competent authorities of the Member State of destination which use such numbering and/or the endorsement of the competent authorities of the Member State of destination if that Member State stipulates that the copy to be returned must be certified or endorsed by its authorities; the authorized signature of the consignee. 3. The duty-suspension arrangements as defined in Article 4 (c) shall be discharged by the placing of the products subject to excise duty under one of the arrangements referred to in Article 5 (2) and subject to the conditions referred to therein, after the consignor has received the copy to be returned of the accompanying administrative document or a copy of the commercial document, duly annotated, in which it must be noted that the products have been placed under such an arrangement. 4. Where the products subject to excise duty which are moving under the duty-suspension arrangement as defined in Article 4 (c) are exported, this arrangement should be discharged by an attestation drawn up by the customs office of departure from the Community confirming that the product has indeed left the Community. That office must send back to the consignor the certified copy of the accompanying document intended for him. 5. If there is no discharge, the consignor shall inform the tax authorities of his Member State wihtin a time limit to be fixed by those tax authorities. The time limit may not, however, exceed three months from the date of dispatch of the goods. 6. Member States shall cooperate to introduce spot checks which may be conducted, as necessary, by computerized procedures.

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Source: EUR-Lex (Cellar) · retrieved 2026-10-31 · Text as adopted (Official Journal); later amendments are not incorporated in this text.