Caution: General Note B.4 On 31 July 2015 the South African Revenue Service (Sars) gave notice of an amendment to the General Note to Schedule No 1 to the Customs and Excise Act which reads ‘By the substitution of General Note 4 to Schedule No 1 to the Act with the following: ‘A rate of duty applicable under any heading or tariff item to any unit of mass, measure, quantity or any other characteristic shall, unless otherwise provided for in such heading or tariff item, apply proportionately to any part of such unit except in the case of a unit of quantity described in the statistical column in Part 1 of Schedule No 1 as “u” (number of units).’ It should in fact be for ‘General Note B 4”, which falls under the heading ‘B. DUTY ASSESMENT’. The tariff amendment also differs from the draft published on 15 June 2015 on which comment was due by 30 June 2015. Amended Tariff Investigations Regulations The Minister of Economic Development on 31 July 2015 announced an amendment to the Tariff Investigations Regulations which were first published on 18 May 2006. Exportation of Scrap Guidelines The International Trade Administration Commission of South Africa (Itac) on 31 July 2015, under the direction of the Economic Development Department (EDD), published a proposed amendment to the Price Preference System (PPS) Policy Guidelines, which were published on 12 September 2014, for which comment is due by 14 August 2015. Stainless Steel Sinks On 31 July 2015 Sars announced an amendment to the anti-dumping duties on stainless steel sinks following Itac’s conclusion of its sunset review and the Minister of Trade and Industry’s acceptance of Itac’s recommendations. There are two interesting things in the tariff amendment. One, there is no longer an exclusion for Malaysia (Central Aluminium Manufactory SDN BHD), which simply means that no Malaysian company participated in the sunset review investigation. Two, Taijing Chuanger Metal Products Co Ltd of China is excluded. This means that you can import from them without the payment of anti-dumping duties of 62.41%. Grape Marc Sars on 31 July 2015 announced the deletion of rebate item 621.13/104.23.03/ 01.01 ‘Spirits obtained by distilling grape wine or grape marc’ and the insertion of rebate item 621.13/104.21.01/ 01.01 ‘Undenatured ethyl alcohol of an alcoholic strength by volume of 80% vol. or higher, obtained by distilling grape wine or grape marc’, and rebate item 621.13/104.23.03/02.01 ‘Spirits obtained by distilling grape wine or grape marc.’ The tariff amendment to provide for a new rebate item for spirits obtained by distilling grape wine or grape marc of an alcoholic strength by volume of 80% volume or higher for use in the manufacture of fortified wine was published on 11 June 2015 and comment is due on 25 June 2015.
