On 11 January 2022, the South African Revenue Service (SARS) announced that effective from 01 January 2021, South African banks no longer accepted cheques. As a consequence all references to cheques in the Customs policy, Standard Operating Procedure and the Completion of the DA 70 Annex have been removed.
The Manual for the Completion of the DA 70 (SC-CF-32) was published by SARS as SC-CF-25-A01, with more information available in its Customs Provisional Payments Policy.
According to the Summary of Main Points in the “Customs Provisional Payments Policy”:
(a) Provisional Payments (PPs) are lodged to secure revenue (duties, levies and VAT) which is due or may become due to SARS Customs pending compliance of a PP condition and, in exceptional cases, where additional security is required, usually for a short period of time.
(b) Where a client contravenes the Customs and Excise Act, a deposit is lodged in terms of Section 91.
Refer to SC-CO-01-05.
(c) The DA 70 (hard copy) must not be used for: (i) Import Custom clearance declaration (CCD) based PPs (see SC-CF-55); or (ii) Travellers - refer to SC-PA-01-01.
(d) This document does not apply to: (i) Completion of DA 70 (SC-CF-25-A01); (ii) Excise provisional payments (refer to SE-PP-02); (iii) Payment Rules - GEN-PAYM-01-G01; (iv) Declarations and PPs for non-registered clients is catered for in the iCBS; and (v) PPs accepted on the Passenger Processing System (PPS) (SC-PA-01-11).
(e) Letters of undertaking between SARS and other Government Agencies (OGAs) may be used in lieu of a PP.
(f) Finalisation of PPs prior to this implementation date will remain manual until processing is
completed.
The draft amendments are accessible at:
https://www.sars.gov.za/wp-content/uploads/Ops/Policies/SC-CF-25-Provisional-Payment-External-Policy.pdf