Footwear rebate created On 23 May 2014 the South African Revenue Service (Sars) announced the creation of a Rebate Item 312.01/6001.92/01.06 for the full rebate of the customs duty on other pile fabrics, knitted or crocheted, of man-made fibres, classifiable in tariff subheading 6001.92, for the manufacture of footwear with uppers of textile materials classifiable in tariff Chapter 64. The application was lodged by The Little Slippery Co who reasoned that there were no Southern African Customs Union (SACU) manufacturers and that the company was under threat from imported slippers. The investigation took 245 days or just over 8 months to complete. Customs Valuation of Software The World Trade Organisation (WTO) on 12 May 2014 announced that the Committee on Customs Valuation had discussed a proposal by Uruguay to update a 30-year-old decision that has allowed members to value, for customs purposes, software and data on the basis of the cost of the carrier media (such as magnetic tapes, CDs and DVDs in which they are transported from one country to the other). Uruguay proposed updating the 1984 Decision on the “Valuation of Carrier Media Bearing Software for Data Processing Equipment”, which allowed members, for customs purposes, to value software according to the cost of its carrier media (CD-ROM or magnetic tapes). Uruguay said that under the current decision, Customs may value software in a CD-ROM at U$5 while the same software imported using a USB key could be valued at U$1 000. It said the decision must be extended to USB keys or flash drives because of their growing popularity as carrier media for software. Argentina and Mexico supported Uruguay’s proposal. The USA, Canada, the EU, Japan and the Philippines said they were open to the proposal and were reviewing the issue. The People’s Republic of China had no objection to the proposal but noted that the Decision excluded songs and movies from this kind of valuation. It also asked for statistics on the trade volumes involved. The chair requested the WTO Secretariat to prepare a study on the trade volumes involved, as requested by China. Technical Barriers to Trade The WTO on 16 May 2014 announced the publication of a new booklet on the WTO’s Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) Agreement that highlights the role of the Agreement and the work of the TBT Committee in helping governments address regulations and standards that affect trade in goods. The TBT booklet is part of the WTO Agreement series, which aims to assist understanding of WTO agreements. This new edition of Technical Barriers to Trade has been fully revised and expanded. Duty Calls Watch List Comment on the following is due by 30 June 2014. The draft interpretation note on the supply of goods and services by professional foreign hunters. The carbon offsets paper and the review of the taxation of alcoholic beverages in South Africa. Draft regulations for the registration as Value-added Tax (VAT) vendors.
