On 13 October the South African Revenue Service (Sars) announced that the finance minister intended to shortly introduce the Tax Administration Laws Amendment Bill, 2017, in the National Assembly. With its announcement, an explanatory summary of the Bill was published, identifying further amendments to the Customs Acts.
Customs and Excise Act, 1964, to extend a provision related to information sharing; to clarify a provision related to imported fuel levy goods; to amend a provision related to customs controlled areas; to clarify a provision related to environmental levy goods; and to amend a provision to delete references to the VAT Act.
Customs Duty Act, 2014, to clarify who may claim refunds and drawbacks and to whom refunds and drawbacks will be paid; and to amend a provision to broaden the scope for clearance declarations and amended clearance declarations to be regarded as applications for purposes of the Act.
Customs Control Act, 2014, to make certain technical corrections; to delete certain unnecessary provisions; to clarify certain provisions, to amend a provision by qualifying when a permission to depart must be submitted in relation to foreign-going vessels; to make changes to provisions relating to the submission of vessel and aircraft departure and arrival reports; to substitute a provision relating to customs permission for the transfer of ownership of goods under customs procedures so as to provide flexibility to exclude certain procedures where permission is not required and to more fully provide for different scenarios that may arise when goods are transferred; to effect changes to a section to broaden the notion of an amended clearance declaration; to amend sections to provide for and clarify various scenarios that may arise when transhipment operations take place at two different seaports; to make certain adjustments to provisions for purposes of systems facilitation; to provide more clarity in respect of reusable transport equipment entering and leaving South Africa and to create flexibility to provide for certain divergent issues concerning the different types of reusable transport equipment by rule; to simplify the removal of stores from a foreign-going vessel, aircraft or cross-border train; to provide for exclusions and exemptions; to limit the requirement of registration as electronic user to the person actually accessing the Sars electronic system; and generally to make adjustments for the smoother implementation of the Act.
Customs and Excise Amendment Act, 2014, to delete a paragraph.