On 12 December 2019, South African Revenue Service (SARS) Acting Executive for Customs and Excise Centre of Excellence’s letter to External Stakeholders, titled “Introduction of eCase and ePenalty Systems”.
On 06 December 2019, SARS Customs introduced two new systems as part of its Reporting of Conveyances and Goods (RCG) project.
The eCase system deals with the misdeclaration of cargo on a customs clearance declaration, or the non-declaration of cargo. In such instances, the system will automatically create a case and SARS will request the applicable supporting documents from the cargo reporter or declarant.
The ePenalty system deals with the non-submission of conveyance and cargo reports, which attracts specific penalties. The system identifies instances of non-compliance and performs the necessary penalty calculations.
Considering various representations received from trade, the systems are not yet operational. SARS will further engage external stakeholders in more detail on both eCase and ePenalty by means of specific workshops, as well as through detailed communications, before these systems are operationalised.
This will take place in the first quarter of 2020, after which a firm implementation date will be shared with clients.
In the meantime, cargo reporters are urged to submit the electronic conveyance and cargo reports for which they are responsible, and declarants are requested to ensure that they correctly reference transport document and conveyance details on their customs clearance declarations.
More information is available on SARS’ “Reporting of Conveyances and Goods (RCG) project” webpage.
Story by: Riaan de Lange
