Excise: HMRC One-to-many campaign to review the register for denatured alcohol and duty free spirit approvals

HMRC have contacted the CIOT and other stakeholders to confirm that they have started a letter campaign sending the attached letter to businesses that hold denatured alcohol and duty free spirit approvals. HMRC have filtered the approvals list and do not intend to send the letter to businesses where they expect the approval to still be required.

The campaign letter will be issued to businesses that received approval for duty free spirit between February 2020 and December 2021. Many of these approvals were received to produce hand sanitiser, however due to the reduction in demand for this they may no longer require the approval. Therefore, HMRC are asking businesses to confirm whether they require the approval or not and if they no longer require it the approval will be cancelled. This action is necessary to reduce the number of unused approvals in circulation and prevent any possible approval hijacking of the approval.

Further campaign letters to the denatured alcohol population will be going out in 2 batches, one in November and the second in February.