Car carriers hit Customs ‘pothole’

A car carrier has got
tangled up in an old piece of
SA Revenue Service (Sars)
legislation, and is struggling
to escape its hold.
The Durban-based
company, Motorlog, is
essentially a car carrier
delivering second-hand
imported vehicles to
neighbouring states –
established when the law
changed and no longer
allowed these vehicles to
be driven on SA roads
on the way to their final
destination country.
But a piece of the
legislation surrounding
this driven vehicle system
still remains, and is now
slapping legal brakes
on companies using
permissible car-carrying
heavy vehicles.
“What we do is to collect
vehicles from bond stores
around the city, to finally
deliver them to their
destination in neighbouring
countries,” said Motorlog
executive, Vernon Naidu.
But an interim stage in
this process is landing the
company in a Customs’
legislation car trap.
“Once we’ve collected all
of our delivery vehicles,”
Naidu told FTW, “we need
to take them to a central
point to consolidate our
overborder loads – taking
things like numbers, weight,
size and destination into
account.
“But Sars is enforcing a
law that hasn’t allowed for
the changed circumstances,
and which states that,
once uplifted from a bond
store, the goods have to
be delivered direct to their
final destination.”
Motorlog has tried to put
its case before Customs,
and to find some way
around the ruling – even to
the extent of considering
forking out for their
consolidation centre to be
also declared as a bond
store.
But, despite constant
efforts, Naidu said that all
they’d succeeded in doing
was “building up reams of
correspondence, and getting
passed from pillar to post
around Sars both nationally
and locally”.
The company has even
quoted what it thinks is a
court precedent supporting
its case from the legislation
surrounding the old drivea-
car system. This where
a truck and trailer (being
driven by an approved
driver) broke down and
had to be taken to a garage
for repairs. The truck and
trailer had to be separated,
as it was understood that
the truck would not be
in a position to pull the
load given the mechanical
problem.
Sars insisted that this
was akin to delivering to
an interim point on the
way to its final destination,
and slapped a detention
notice for the trailers on
the offending delivery
company.
When the issue was
finally taken to court, Sars
lost, according to Naidu.
“Our consolidation yard
is a similar situation,”
he said, “and should be
exempt from the ruling of
direct delivery to the final
destination.”
The issue that needs
clarity from Sars is the use
of the word “Diversion” in
its ruling.
“What is it? asked
Naidu. “Is it the entering
of bonded cargo for home
consumption – or a change
of routing?
Also, he questioned why
Sars was taking such a
strong stance on procedure.
“When these vehicles
were driven by the foreign
buyers,” Naidu added, “they
were allowed 21 days from
the time the temporary
road permit was issued to
the crossing of the border
– and they could have gone
anywhere before actually
leaving this country.”
The story still continues.