Take note of new rules for licensing with Sars

A warning from Taryn Hunkin, customs paralegal with Durban lawyers Shepstone & Wylie, for members of the freight and trade industries who may wish to licence or register with SA Revenue Service (Sars). “At the end of April, Sars introduced a new DA185 form, and your readers should be aware that they are no longer accepting the old forms,” she said. “So if any of them are considering making application to Sars for licensing or registration, they must use the new DA185 form published on the Sars website.” The changes in the document seem to be mostly cosmetic, Hunkin added, with the primary changes in the new document being: • the amendment to section 1 of the form now called “Notes for the Completion of the DA185 and its Annexures”; • the substitution of the “Client Types” section with an “Annexures” section; and • additional supporting documents called for in section 13. The primary change in the new document is the substitution of an “Annexures” section – reflecting the different types of licences and registrations available – for the “Client Types” section in the old DA 185 form. Hunkin also pointed out that: “In terms of Sections 59A and 60 of the Customs & Excise Act 91 of 1964, anyone wishing to conduct business with Sars as, for example, an importer, exporter, remover of goods in bond etc, must complete and submit the prescribed application forms (the DA185) and the relevant annexes.” Another point worth bearing in mind, she added, is: “While completing the relevant forms is relatively easy, compiling the necessary supporting documents can be cumbersome and timeconsuming. Applicants must be reminded that Sars only accepts either original documents or certified copies and the supporting documents are only valid for a period of three months.” This latter statement refers, for example, to the fixed telephone numbers of the applicant company. Usually, when the Telkom account is certified, it will be stamped with the date of certification. Now, when you submit this as a supporting document, you must be sure that this date is sufficiently recent to allow Sars to go through its rather lengthy approval procedure, in both your company’s home city and Pretoria. Fail to allow enough time, and you will be faced with the onerous task of going through the whole application process again. INSERT ‘Compiling the necessary supporting documents can be cumbersome and time-consuming.’