The South African Revenue Service (Sars) has indicated that it is going the proverbial extra mile to accommodate trade in its ongoing implementation of digital manifest declarations, Reporting of Conveyances and Goods (RCG). Filling in industry about RCG roll-out for the rest of the year at a recent Transport Forum, Sars project manager Michael Lekala identified three elements that were part of the next implementation stage – “Phase 2b”. Briefly touching on two of the elements, “e-case and e-penalty”, the customs and excise specialist said the former related to an “event where a manifest is submitted but no declaration has been received”. Once an e-case has been opened, it will allow Sars officers to take the necessary action. In respect of an e-penalty, it follows that this will be the consequence “where we find that a manifest was not submitted”. But it was with regard to the third element of Phase 2b that Sars appeared to be as accommodating, transparent and thorough as possible. This implementation involves on-the-spot recording of all interactions between the tax authority and trade as a result of enforcement activities that take place in the field. Said Lekala: “We want our officers to record each and every enforcement intervention they make. So when they stop something, for example on the basis of an identified risk, the reaction of the detector dog unit, or an observation, they will have to open and record a case on a mobile device.” Moreover, Mobi will enable Sars to send timely updates to freight forwarders and shippers about the status of goods. Lekala added: “Once something has been recorded, we can then send a message saying that a certain consignment that was previously released has now been stopped which is
something that we are looking at implementing, either in the first or a subsequent phase of Mobi. It will make trade aware of what’s happening on our side as enforcement checks are being done.”
More importantly, he pointed out that Mobi checking would significantly speed up the monitoring process on Sars’ end, allowing trade to respond and hopefully rectify flagged declarations to avoid unnecessary delays. The introduction of this functionality would further enhance risk data in order to improve case selection at transactional and entity level, he added.
We want our officers to record each and every intervention they have. – Michael Lekala
