Excise Duties

An excise or (misleadingly) excise tax is any duty on manufactured goods which is levied at the moment of manufacture, rather than at sale. Excises are often associated with customs duties (which are levied on pre-existing goods when they cross a designated border in a specific direction); customs are levied on goods which come into existence - as taxable items - at the border, while excise is levied on goods which came into existence inland.

Although sometimes referred to as a tax, excise is specifically a duty; tax is technically a levy on an individual (or more accurately, the assessment of what that amount might be), while duty is a levy on a particular good. An excise is considered an indirect tax, meaning that the producer or seller who pays the levy to the government is expected to try to recover their loss by raising the price paid by the eventual buyer of the good. Excises are typically imposed in addition to an indirect tax such as a sales tax or value added tax (VAT). Typically, an excise is distinguished from a sales tax or VAT in four ways:

Typical examples of excise duties are taxes on gasoline and other fuels, and taxes on tobacco and alcohol (sometimes referred to as sin tax).

The etymology of the word excise is derived from the Dutch accijns, which is presumed to come from the Latin accensare, meaning simply "to tax".

Excise was introduced in the mid 17th century under the Puritan regime. In the British Isles, upon the Restoration of the Monarchy, many of the Puritan social restrictions were overturned, but Excise was re-introduced, under the Tenures Abolition Act 1660, in lieu of rent, for tenancies of royally owned land which had not already become socage. Although the affected tenancies were limited in number, the Excise was levied more generally; at the time, there was thought to be a rough correspondence between the wealthy manufactures of affected goods, and the wealthy tenants of royal land.

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