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Taxation and Customs Union

Excise Duties: Other Energy Tax Legislation

Other legislation which covers the taxation of energy products includes:

Council Directive 95/60/ECon fiscal marking of gas oils and kerosene. This Directive provides a common marking system to identify gas oil and kerosene subject to a reduced excise rate e.g. mineral oils used as propellants. The aim of this marking is to prevent tax evasion and ensure the proper functioning of the internal market. The rules are without prejudice to national provisions on fiscal marking.

In order to assess if Directive95/60/EC is still fit for purpose, the Commission is currently carrying out an evaluation to identify burdens, inconsistencies, gaps or ineffective measures and to make the necessary proposals to follow up on the findings of the review.

The final study evaluation report was published in 2018.

Main text

Annexes

Executive summary

Commission Decision 2011/544/EC establishes Solvent Yellow 124 as the common fiscal marker and fixes the marking level of at least 6 mg and not more than 9 mg of marker per litre of mineral oil.

A 2004 Commission studylooked at how to establish a harmonised Community reference method of analysis for the Euromarker (Solvent Yellow 124) for laboratory tests. Member States agreed to use it as a common reference method in their analyses. This method has improved the comparability of the results of tests carried out by different Member States.

► ► On 11 September 2015 the Commission launched a Call for expression of interest in order to identify a substance suitable for use as a fiscal marker in gas oil and kerosene which performs better than Solvent Yellow 124.

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Aircraft Fuel

Aircraft fuel, other than that used in private pleasure-flying, is exempt from excise duty. The exemption is included in the Energy Tax Directive 2003/96/EC (Article 14(1)(b)).

However, Member States can tax aviation fuel for domestic flights and, by means of bilateral agreements, also fuel used in intra-EU flights. In such cases, Member States may apply a level of taxation below the minimum level set out in the Energy Tax Directive.

The EU tax exemption of aircraft fuel is based on the international provisions of the 1944 ICAO Chicago Convention, which was most recently updated in 2006. The Convention establishes rules of airspace, aircraft registration and safety, and exempts commercial air fuels from tax.