Legal and Policy - 15 May 2025

SARS

8 May 2025 – Customs and Excise Act, 1964: The tariffs amendments notices, scheduled for publication in the Government Gazette, relate to the following amendments:

Part 5A of Schedule No. 1, by the substitution of the rate of fuel levy for item 195.20.03, to give effect to the Budget proposals announced by the Minister of Finance on 12 March 2025
Part 1 of Schedule No. 1, by the substitution of tariff subheadings 1701.12, 1701.13, 1701.14, 1701.91, and 1701.99, to reduce the rate of customs duty on sugar from 377.35c/kg to 282.85c/kg in terms of the existing variable tariff formula (ITAC Minute 17/2024)

Publication details will be made available later

9 May 2025 – Customs and Excise Act, 1964: Publication details for tariffs amendments notices R6176, and R6177, as published in Government Gazette 52603 of 9 May 2025, are now available.

12 May 2025 – The state provides state warehouses for the safekeeping of goods. These are managed by Customs. The purpose of this list of unentered goods is to notify the importer, exporter and any other person that has interest in the goods that the goods have been taken up into the State warehouse and if they remain unentered they will be disposed in accordance with the provisions of the Customs & Excise Act.

See the latest Customs Weekly List of Unentered Goods here.

12 May 2025 – The Western Cape mobile tax unit schedule for June 2025 is now available.

14 May 2025 – We are delighted to announce that SARS is enhancing its services to make it easier for you to file Donations Tax and Withholding Tax on Royalties. You can now submit these declarations online through the SARS Online Query System (SOQS), available 24/7 on the SARS website.

SOQS is designed to simplify your tax affairs, allowing you to manage everything remotely without the need to visit our branches. This digital platform supports our strategic objective to modernise and digitise our services, making tax compliance more convenient for you. With SOQS, you can send queries, submit tax returns, manage declarations, and much more, all from the comfort of your home or office.

For more information on these tax products, please visit the Donations Tax or Withholding Tax on Royalties webpages.

14 May 2025 – The facility codes used in Box 30 on the Customs Clearance Declaration (CCD) have been updated to include details of the newly approved De-grouping Facilities – Ijubane Logistics (Pty) Ltd with code BU and Fusion Dispatch Center with code CD. Both are based at O.R. Tambo International Airport.

SC-CF-19-A02 – Facilities Code List – External Annexure

14 May 2025 – Achieving our Vision of a smart, modern SARS with unquestionable integrity that is trusted and admired is of paramount importance. Pivotal to the delivery of our vision are our digital platforms and technology infrastructure. To provide clarity and certainty, make it easy for taxpayers and traders to comply with their obligations and building public trust and confidence, our technology assets must demonstrate the highest levels of availability, robustness, and security.

In accordance with our Vision and Strategic Objectives, which include modernising our systems to provide Digital and Streamlined online services, we are hard at work ensuring that our digital platforms and technology infrastructure are available, robust, and secure, by performing regular upgrades, enhancements, and maintenance.

Considering the above, SARS Digital platform maintenance is scheduled for:

Friday, 16 May 2025 from 18h00 to 22h00,
Saturday, 17 May 2025 from 20h00 to 00h00.

During this time, you may experience intermittent service interruption on our eFiling, Tax and Customs Digital Platforms.

Responses (CUSRES messages) to transactions submitted during this time will be delayed, however, arrival and exit management functions are available at land border posts for all released declarations and manifests.
Stakeholders are therefore urged to submit all Goods Declarations (bills of entry) and Road Manifest, especially those deemed priority, by Saturday, 17 May 2025 @ 19h00.