South Africa: Cancellations of customs-related registrations and licences
SARS notified businesses operating in customs environment of their intention to cancel customs-related registration and/or licences
Cancellations of customs-related registrations and licences
Hundreds of businesses operating in the customs environment received a letter from the South Africa Revenue Service (SARS) on 20 September 2023, notifying them of SARS’ intention to cancel their customs-related registration and/or licences. These include importer/exporter code registrations which allow them to import and export goods.
This action taken by SARS is the result of those businesses’ failure to comply with a directive issued by SARS in August 2022 instructing customs registrants and licensees to “migrate” or “onboard” their particulars onto the e-filing platform. This formed part of SARS’ modernisation of the Registration, Licensing and Accreditation (RLA) function.
SARS initially set a deadline for compliance with its directive on 30 March 2023 but have only now taken formal action.
Read a September 2023 report [PDF 635 KB] prepared by the KPMG member firm in South Africa
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