AGENTS HIT FOR SIX was the headline we saw when a forwarding contact of FTW complained bitterly about the severe impact his company's income had suffered with the demise of import surcharges.
But we'd have to add: But a catch at long-on saves the day, if we wanted to be industry-correct.
According to Peter Krafft, chairman of SAAFF (SA Association of Freight Forwarders) and m.d. of Rohlig, income from that disbursement source should be a minor percentage of a company's total outlay.
The big charges were only on luxury goods like chocolates and perfumes, he said, and these constituteed only a small volume of traffic. These items have only really started to come in since the surcharge went. On an industry basis, Krafft calculated the following average figures: VAT is about two-thirds (66%) of any company's duty payments outlay. Import duty itself (and the former surcharges) about 33%.
That 5% when it was jammed in there is pretty small cheese - and, converted to profit lost, is minimal.
Our complainant, Krafft added, was an imbalanced exception to the industry norm.
