On 23 January, the South African Revenue Service (Sars) announced the substitution of Note 8 to Schedule no 5 to the Customs and Excise Act, 1964 “Specific Drawbacks and Refunds of Customs Duties, Fuel Levy and Environmental Levy” to provide for the granting of a refund or drawback of duty as contemplated in Section 75(1)(c) “Specific rebates, drawbacks and refunds of duty”, Section 54D “Rebates, refunds and drawbacks”, and Section 54J “Application of environmental levy provisions of this Act” of the Act, 1964 in circumstances where the customs procedure code is not inserted on the bill of entry (BoE) or other export declaration, or has been inserted incorrectly.
The substituted Note 8 to Schedule No.5 to the Act, 1964 reads:
“8.Notwithstanding any provision to the contrary in this Schedule, for the purposes of items 501.00 to 521.00 in Part 1, items 522.02 to 522.06 in Part 2 and items 550.00 to 551.00 of this Schedule, a refund or drawback of duty as contemplated in section 75(1)(c), 54D or 54J, may be granted if the customs procedure code (CPC) applicable to the export as specified in the list published on the SARS website referred to in rule 00.06 and the relevant refund or drawback item are reflected on the export bill of entry or other export declaration: Provided that a refund or drawback may be granted in exceptional circumstances where-
(a)the Commissioner is satisfied on good grounds shown, that
(i)the refund or drawback item number has been
(aa)omitted from the export bill of entry or declaration in error or due to unforeseeable circumstances; or
(bb)reflected incorrectly on the export bill of entry or declaration; or
(ii)the CPC had been reflected incorrectly on the bill of entry or declaration;
(b)the mandatory information required on the bill of entry is completed or corrected post export; and
(c)the applicant has, in addition to any documents normally required to establish entitlement to a refund or drawback, also submitted the following with the application:
(i)An affidavit setting out the circumstances in which the omission or error referred to in paragraph (a) occurred, which circumstances must show that the omission or error was made in good faith;
(ii)any documents constituting sufficient proof that the relevant goods were exported by the applicant, including
(aa)a document evidencing that the goods were packed or loaded for export under customs supervision, or physically inspected prior to export; or
(bb)any other documents that the Commissioner considers to be such sufficient proof; and
(iii)any documents constituting sufficient proof that the same goods that were exported, were imported in the country of destination, including
(aa)the import bill of entry or import declaration accepted and released by the customs authority of the country of destination, together with its supporting documents; or
(bb)any other documents that the Commissioner considers to be such sufficient proof.”