Study contributing to an impact assessment concerning a possible legislative proposal authorising France to apply a reduced excise duty rate on traditional rum produced in specific French Outermost Regions

Description: The study will demonstrate to what extent the current system of reduced excise duties is fit for purpose and delivered at minimum costs the desired impacts. The study should confirm known and identify unknown and potential future problems of the current policy, identify and describe the scope for simplification of the rules and for reducing regulatory burdens as well as possibilities for synergies with other policy tools or potential collisions with other policies, calculate regulatory benefits and savings, etc. The evaluation time-period to cover is 2014 – 2017. The purpose of the study is to contribute to the decision making process of the Commission under Better Regulation Rules.

The evaluation part will consider four key issues:

to what extent the evaluation can confirm the findings of the French authorities concerning the taxation applied to OR produced rum;
the need to assess the development of costs for rum produced in the OR from 2014 to 2017 as well as other aspects which are not sufficiently documented at present;
the evaluation of problems encountered in the past with the use of fixed quotas;
the issues related to the EU regional policy, state aid aspects and trade.

The impact assessment part of the study will aim to establish the most realistic policy options under Article 349 TFEU, describing their possible impact on stakeholders, including the economic operators and the Internal Market, as well as the regulators, building on the results established in the evaluation part.

Phases of the project:

Phase 1: Inception and initial research

Phase 2: Primary data collection with key stakeholders

Phase 3: Evaluation

Phase 4: Impact assessment

Phase 5: Open Public Consultation

Phase 6: Finalisation

Client: DG Taxud

Partners: PWC, HIS