On 24 May 2011 the South African Revenue Service (Sars) released the following letter under the title “Amendments to Schedule No.5 to the Customs and Excise Act”. 1. The amendments have been published in Government Gazette No. 34272 dated 13 May 2011 and will become effective on 1 June 2011. 2. General Note 1 of Schedule No. 5 stipulates the requirements that must be complied with before a refund or drawback of duty will be allowed. 3. The newly inserted General Note 8 to Schedule No. 5 places a legal obligation on exporters to insert, on the export declaration, the customs procedure code (CPC) applicable to the export, as well as the relevant refund or drawback item for refund or drawback of duty purposes. 4. The proviso contained in Note 5(a)(i) to refund item 522.00 that was applicable to refund item 522.03 allowing for a refund application to be considered, even in instances where the export declaration was not accompanied by the form DA 63 at the time of submission, has been deleted. The effect of this amendment is that the export declaration and the form DA 63 must be presented simultaneously to afford SARS the opportunity to positively identify the goods on exportation as being the same as those imported. 5. Applications for a refund or drawback of duty submitted prior to 1 June 2011 will be handled according to the procedures in place at that time.