Customs

For many years it has been extremely difficult to get hold of the collective Rules to the Customs and Excise Act, No.91 of 1964 (the Act). The amendments to the Rules to the Act are published in the Government Gazette on an ad hoc basis, but the Rules in their totality were not available free of charge. This however changed on 09 June.

The South African Revenue Service (Sars) published the combined version of the Customs and Excise Rules, 1995 (as amended) including amendments up to 02 May 2014, all of 724 pages, as well as the 22-page combined version of the Schedule to the Customs and Excise Rules, 1995 (excluding the forms).

According to Sars the Rules to the Act have been added for ease of information and must be read subject to the Rule amendments notices published in the Government Gazette. Sars also published the Rule Amendments per year from 2000 to 2014.

As a consequence of the publication you now have free access to the Act, the Rules to the Act and the Schedules to the Act. Now we only await the publication of the Customs and Excise forms (with some exception the DA forms). Though some of the forms are available, it would be great if all forms were available on the Sars website.