Customs and Excise Highlights

1. The third draft of the Customs Control Rules made under the Customs Control Act, No 31 of 2014 was published by the South African Revenue Service (SARS) for sight only. Please note that the draft has been “frozen” for purposes of SARS systems development and is not published for public comment. We quote from the SARS explanatory note to the publication:

“The amendments made to the second draft of the Rules include changes occasioned by external stakeholder comments received, internal feedback and SARS operational requirements, changes to give effect to amendments and proposed amendments of the Customs Control Act, 2014, (as contained in the Tax Administration Laws Amendment Act, 2016, and to be contained in the Tax Administration Laws Amendment Bill, 2017), as well as the technical review of the draft as a whole. Technical amendments include the correction of errors, the moving of provisions, the adaptation of wording to ensure consistency of similar provisions throughout the text, the insertion of provisions inadvertently omitted, the insertion of general provisions applicable to all the Chapters and the consequential deletion or adaptation of provisions in the various Chapters.

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Please note that Chapters 2 and 37 of the draft Rules will be published for public comment at a later stage when these Chapters have been finalised”.

2. Please advise if additional information is required.