Custom and Excise highlights

Below are this week’s selected highlights:

• Increases in rates of duty for bars and rods of certain TH’s in headings 72.13, 72.14, 72.15 and 72.28.
  
  
• SARS auto merging of tax-payer profiles. Quote from www.sars.gov.za:
  
  SARS will match and merge your registered details for tax, customs and excise that we have on our system. The merging of these records will create one consolidated profile. You will then be able to view and manage all your individual or company tax types and registered particulars in one consolidated view.
  
  Please note, none of your details will be changed. SARS will simply match and merge your records into one consolidated profile to make it easier for you to view and manage the profile.
  
  This auto-merge process will affect individuals and companies who have multiple tax and customs registrations and whose profiles were not previously merged. The process will take place in batches over a period of six months.
  
  
• UK voted exit from the EU (Brexit). Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty provides as follow:
  
  Any Member State may decide to withdraw from the Union in accordance with its own constitutional requirements.
  
  A Member State which decides to withdraw shall notify the European Council of its intention. In the light of the guidelines provided by the European Council, the Union shall negotiate and conclude an agreement with that State, setting out the arrangements for its withdrawal, taking account of the framework for its future relationship with the Union. That agreement shall be negotiated in accordance with Article 218(3) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. It shall be concluded on behalf of the Union by the Council, acting by a qualified majority, after obtaining the consent of the European Parliament.
  
  The Treaties shall cease to apply to the State in question from the date of entry into force of the withdrawal agreement or, failing that, two years after the notification referred to in paragraph 2, unless the European Council, in agreement with the Member State concerned, unanimously decides to extend this period” (own emphasis added).