MOSCOW, April 22Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law that prescribes customs and tax administration to abandon paper excise stamps and switch to only digital labeling of tobacco and excisable nicotine-containing products. The corresponding document is posted on the website of the official publication of legal acts.
For these purposes, the Tax Code is supplemented with the term “accounting and control special mark” for labeling tobacco and nicotine-containing products. In essence, this is a unique QR code that is applied to the pack, explained Deputy Head of the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation Alexey Sazanov. 
Innovations will allow maintaining the powers of customs authorities to administer excise taxes on tobacco products imported from the EAEU countries. Control will also be ensured over the correct determination of the tax base for excise taxes on tobacco and nicotine-containing products.
If the size of the tax base determined by the taxpayer turns out to be less than the volume of products sold according to the state information system for monitoring the turnover of labeled goods, the tax base will be determined based on the data of this system.
These changes will come into force one month from the date of official publication of the law, but not earlier than the 1st day of the next excise tax period. And the law itself, which contains other norms, will come into force from the date of its official publication.