Excise duty accounting

In order to report excise duties correctly, you must have a complete overview of your production, imports, stocks/warehousing, sales and deliveries.

Excise duty accounting provides you with this overview and represents a solid basis for producing correct reports, and it may also be used in connection with audits by the Tax Administration. 

Why this is important

In order to report excise duties correctly, the calculation basis must be correct. Excise duty accounting enables you to find and document the proper calculation basis for the excise duty for use in the report.

Everything to be reported via the excise tax return, should therefore be registered in the excise duty accounts.

How to keep excise duty accounts

You may keep the excise duty accounts separately or as a part of the business’s stockkeeping and accounting system.

If you keep the excise duty accounts as a part of the stockkeeping and accounting system, you must be able to retrieve separate reports concerning only those goods that are subject to excise duty. These reports must contain the same information as would separate excise duty accounts. 

The information must be accessible in an electronic format, for example Excel or similar.

We recommend that you enter the current rates for excise duties in your excise duty accounts  to make it easier to report correctly. You can then compare the calculated tax with the amount in your excise tax return.

As a rule, the rates change 1 January every year.

You will always find the current rates in the code guide for excise duties (in Norwegian only).

You must use specific excise duty codes when completing the excise tax return.

We recommend that you enter the excise duty codes in your excise duty accounts to make it easier to report correctly.

Example:
You must not use the same excise duty code for supplying power to district heating suppliers (302) as for supplying power to industry/manufacturers (301). 

You’ll find the excise duty codes in the code guide for excise duties (in Norwegian only)..

When reporting excise duties, you must register all types of withdrawals from your approved storage facility for each duty group in the excise tax return. In addition to withdrawals, you must also register return of goods. Net recording where only the excise duty amount due is listed, must not occur.

If you have both duty to be paid and duty you can claim a refund for from the Tax Administration in the same period, you must report these separately in the excise tax return. 

Example
In February, you sold 500 litres of beer and received in return 300 litres of beer.
 
In this case, you must record both the withdrawal of 500 litres and the return of 300 litres. This means you cannot report 200 litres as withdrawal/sale for this period.

You must report exemptions

When you complete your excise tax return, all movement connected with the business’s deliveries/withdrawals must be shown, including those exempt from duty.

If you’ve made an error in an earlier report

You may correct reported excise duty up to 3 years back in time. You do this by submitting a correction notice for the period in which the error occurred.

Your excise duty accounts should include the following

What your excise duty accounts should show, depends on the type of excise duty you are keeping accounts for. There is a great difference between the import of beer and the supply of electricity.

As a rule, we can say that any excise duty accounts must show the information necessary for the calculation of the excise duty. This includes for example

This is how it might look

At the least, the accounts must include

  • overview of goods in stock
  • overview of activities in and out
  • status of your stock at the start and end of the period you are reporting for (normally each month)

 

Additional guidance for some sectors

Alcoholic beverages

In order to simplify the process for those of you who produce or import alcoholic beverages, we have updated the help pages with detailed examples on how to report excise duty accounts.​

Excise duty accounting regarding alcoholic beverages

Other sectors

For the moment, there is no detailed guidance for those dealing in goods or services subject to excise duty other than alcohol. You must nevertheless follow the same rules for excise duty accounting.

Please let us know if there is anything else we need to clarify with regards to excise duty accounting:

Let us know the difficulties you experience in connection with excise duty accounts

Documentation

You must retain all the documentation confirming that the entries you made in your excise tax return are correct. This applies to, for example, documentation confirming any right to reduced rates or exemptions. 

You do not need to send us documentation on your own accord, but you must be able to provide it upon our request. 

You must retain any documentation, excise duty accounts and consolidations for 10 years. Note that the period of storage is longer according to the Excise Duty Regulations than according to the Bookkeeping and Customs Regulations. 

  • invoices for purchases and sales 
  • credit notes  
  • internal vouchers  
  • contracts  
  • payment vouchers 
  • customs declarations 
  • shipping documents 
  • approved applications for destructions 
  • for transfers not subject to excise duties: confirmation that the recipient is registered for the same duty type 
  • other documentation of claims for exemption of duties 

See also