On 12 September 2022, the South African Revenue Service (SARS) Executive Excise informed External Stakeholders, in a letter, that SARS Customs and Excise is enhancing current systems with modern, automated systems to facilitate legitimate trade and travel.
The letter reader headed “DELAY IN IMPLEMENTING THE AUTOMATED REFUNDS AND DRAWBACKS SYSTEM” reads:
SARS Customs and Excise is enhancing current systems with modern, automated systems to facilitate legitimate trade and travel.
The Refunds and Drawback process is being automated as part of this modernisation. Previous communication indicated that the system would go live on 19 September 2022. The implementation date has been postponed due to the following reasons:
1. To allow an additional period for trade testing.
2. To consider additional feedback from various stakeholders.
3. To allow additional time to make changes to the development of the system resulting from additional enhancements to the design.
SARS will communicate details of the changes and a new implementation date in due course. The current manual process will remain effective. We apologise for any inconvenience; we deem it necessary to take all inputs before implementing the new system.
Please contact Teboho Mokoena at tmokoena@sars.gov.za should you have further queries.