On 10 November 2021, the South African Revenue Service (SARS) announced the release of its 8-page “Goods for Display or Use at Exhibitions, Fairs, Meetings or Similar Events” which reads as follows.
The Guidelines on Temporary Admission (TA) issued by the World Customs Organization (WCO) provides a useful introduction to the international approach to goods that are temporarily admitted for display or at exhibitions, fairs, meetings or similar events.
“When goods are to stay only temporarily in a customs territory, the payment of the import duties and taxes applicable to them is not warranted in light of the administrative burden for customs in collecting these duties and taxes and refunding them after the goods are exported.
Furthermore, from an international trader’s perspective, this would cause the same goods to be liable for payment of import duties and taxes each time they were temporarily imported into a customs territory. In addition, goods temporarily imported free of duties and taxes are not in competition with domestic goods since their use is limited and they must be re-exported within the approved time limit. For these reasons, the national legislation of most administrations allows conditional relief from import duties and taxes for certain categories of temporarily imported goods.
In particular, by facilitating the exchange of articles of an educational, scientific or cultural nature, this procedure benefits not only cultural development but also education and scientific research, which are vital for the progress of humankind.”
The Publication is available on request.