On 30 June the South African Revenue Service (Sars) Customs Compliance Centre Cluster Chairperson released a letter to trade and agents titled, “Escalation Procedures for Customs Matters”, which reads:
During the Covid-19 lockdown, the South African Revenue Service (Sars) has embarked on a journey to reimagine how we provide efficient and effective service to all our taxpayers, while improving compliance levels. Sars has had to balance providing a seamless and effortless service to taxpayers while protecting our own employees and taxpayers from infection.
In the Customs area, we have encouraged clients to use electronic channels as far as possible and in the event of urgent matters, make an appointment to come into a Customs office. We also introduced a mailbox (osc@sars.gov.za) to deal with trade issues relating to Covid-19 and communicated all branch contact details on our website.
However, Sars is finding it increasingly difficult to meet service-level expectations due to trade not adhering to the communicated escalation process.
In order to improve our service delivery and prevent multiple Sars employees receiving and dealing with the same query, clients are urged to take note of the following:
- With immediate effect, email escalations directed to individuals in Sars (directly or in copy) will no longer be entertained.
- Communication with individuals is only allowed if and when initiated by Sars.
- All future first-time escalations must be directed to the e-mail: C&E-Escalations@sars.gov.za
- Please write only the Local Reference Number (LRN) number(s) in the subject line. This will assist the team in resolving your query speedily.
- Should there be no response within 24 hours, a second email can be sent to OSC@sars.gov.za
Any future changes to this process will be communicated to clients. Your support and cooperation in this regard would be highly appreciated.”
The Notice is accessible at: