DUTY CALLS

28 Aug 2015 - by Riaan de Lange

Steel Panel Rebate

Provision

On 21 August 2015 the

South African Revenue

Service (Sars) announced

the insertion of rebate item

315.05/7308.90.90/01.01 in

Part 1 of Schedule No 3 to

the Customs and Excise Act,

1964 ‘Industry: structures

(excluding prefabricated

buildings of heading 94.06)

and parts of structures

(for example, bridges and

bridge-sections, lockgates,

towers, lattice masts, roofs,

roofing frameworks, doors

and windows and their

frames and thresholds for

doors, shutters, balustrades,

Pillars and Columns), of iron

Or steel; plates, rods, angles,

shapes, sections, tubes and

the like, prepared for use in

structures, of iron or steel’.

The intention of the

rebate item is to provide for

‘steel panels with an inner

core of Portland cement for

the manufacture of elevated

(raised) flooring systems

for buildings classifiable

in tariff subheading

7308.90.90’ to be imported

under the rebate of the full

customs duty.

Wheat and Wheaten

Flour Duty

Sars on 21 August 2015

announced, in terms of the

variable tariff formula, the

reduction in the rates of

customs (all rates of duty)

on wheat and wheaten

flour, classifiable in tariff

subheadings 1001.91 and

1001.99, from 80.01c/kg to

51.06c/kg and 120.02c/kg to

76.59c/kg respectively,

WTO Agreement on

RoO

The International Chamber

of Commerce (ICC) is

calling on countries to stop

rolling out unilateral nonpreferential

rules of origin

(RoO) and encouraging

them to conclude the World

Trade Organisation (WTO)

agreement on RoO (ARoO).

Negotiations on the WTO

ARoO have been at an

impasse for over a decade,

triggering a proliferation of

unilateral non-preferential

rules and creating severe

administrative burdens

and costs for companies,

especially small- and

medium-sized enterprises

(SMEs).

The ICC called on

governments to ratify and

honour the provisions of the

World Customs Organisation’s

(WCO) Revised Kyoto

Convention Specific Annex

K on definitions, principles,

standards and recommended

practices with regard to

origin.

The ICC has released its

‘Policy Statement on Non-

Preferential Rules of Origin

for Commercial Policy

Purposes’, which is very

insightful.

Customs Legislation

Update

On 17 August 2015 Sars

sent out an email with

the subject line ‘Special

Alert – Letter to customs

clients re new legislation’. It

is understood that the first

phase of implementation will

deal with ‘Registration and

Licensing’ for which Customs

stakeholders will be expected

to register. As there are

519 044 registered

stakeholders, assuming that

there are no duplications

and that all are ‘active’, and

allowing a year to register all,

this would mean processing

1 422 registrants per day.

Customs Acts Clock

Due to the interest in the date

of implementation of the “New

Acts”, we introduce a clock

counting the days since the

publication of the Customs

Duty Act, 2014 (duty) and

the Customs Control Act,

2014 (control) and when their

drafting commenced.

The days are in brackets: duty

(414), control (401), and Acts

(3 891).