|
As a result of the paperless release initiative, a joint venture between the South African Revenue Service Customs and Excise division (Customs) and the South African Reserve Bank Exchange Control department (Exchange Control) launched a paperless release initiative to help achieve an electronic match between payments for goods imported and the physical receipt of goods in South Africa.
With immediate effect, the SAD 500 customs declaration form will no longer be available in hard copy format. Only electronic forms will be available. As a result, the form will not bear an original customs stamp.
From now on, a printed consignee’s copy of the electronic SAD 500 must be presented with the normal requisite documents when making payment for cleared imports. Where advance payments are made, this form will have to be presented to your authorised dealer for mark up and endorsement .
Import Control Number
In principle, the new process differs very little from the Bill of Entry follow-up procedure currently applied by banks. However, there is one critical change for importers: You will need to supply, at the time of payment, a unique reference number for each cross border payment. This unique number is known as the Import Control Number (ICN), and is arrived at as follows:
Where goods have already been received in the country and a Bill of Entry number (also known as a Release Notification number) has been issued by Customs, a unique “ICN” must be compiled for these goods.
Formatting the ICN
Where the Bill of Entry number is available, the ICN must be made up as follows:
BOECCYYMMDDAAA0000000, where:
- BOE is a fixed identifier which indicates that a Bill of Entry number has been issued by Customs (see below for alternative format where the bill of entry number has not been issued)
- CC refers to the century
- YY refers to the year
- MM refers to the month
- DD refers to the day
- AAA refers to the customs office code
- 0000000 refers to the 7-digit Bill of Entry number issued by Customs.
The resultant alphanumeric sequence must be entered in the “Import Payments, Import Control number (ICN)” field of Standard Bank’s integrated “Application to purchase foreign currency” form (number 00039068).
Where a Bill of Entry number is not available, i.e. where goods are still to be shipped or are on the water, the invoice number which represents the payment offshore must be used, prefixed with the letters “INV”. The required format would thus be INV000000.
The invoice number which you supply to the authorised dealer must be included, and should appear in the field labelled “13A. INVOICE NO. AND DATE” on the SAD 500 form.
Where bulk payments are made against multiple invoices, only one invoice number must be supplied to Customs and the authorised dealer to enable mark-up. Please ensure that you use the same number consistently on all appropriate documentation.
These rules apply on all payments for imports under Balance of Payment (BOP) categories 102,103,104,105,107 and 201.
The ICN must be entered in the “Import Payments, Import Control Number (ICN)” field of Standard Bank’s integrated “Application to purchase foreign currency” form (number 00039068).
In the case of advance payments for imports (BOP category 101) and capital goods, where the invoice number held at the time of payment is from a pro forma invoice, the pro forma invoice number must be used throughout the payment life of the transaction, even after any subsequent invoices are issued (including commercial invoices).
Under no circumstances may an invoice number be substituted for the 7-digit Bill of Entry number (the numbers that form the last 7 digits of the ICN number) after goods have been cleared by customs. This number is vital in the mark up process, and will always be available on the SAD 500 form.
The same rules and numbering conventions apply to import documentary credits and documentary collections.
Customs Client Number
Over and above the ICN, a Customs Client number (CCN) must also be provided for all cross border payments under BOP categories 101,102,103,104,105,107 and 201.
The CCN is an 8-digit number which can be obtained by registering as an importer with South African Revenue Service. For more information contact your freight forwarder or visit http://www.sars.gov.za/home.asp?pid=175.
This number must be entered in the “Import Payments, Customers Client Number (CCN)” field in Standard Bank’s integrated “Application to purchase foreign currency” form (number 00039068).
If the CCN is less than 8 digits, zeros must be inserted in front of the number. For example, if your CCN is 12345, you should enter 00012345.
Your co-operation in adhering to these new requirements would be greatly appreciated.
For more information on the new requirements, call 0860 123 006 or email tpsicmsupport@standardbank.co.za |
