On February 19, the chair- person of the Opera-tions Appeals Com-mittee of the South African Revenue Service (Sars) issued a letter titled ‘Internal Adminis-trative Appeals: Guidance’.

The letter indicates that the Customs Appeals Committee has noticed that the procedures pertaining to the submission of DA51 forms (Internal Administrative Appeal in terms of the Customs and Excise Act, 1964) do not comply with the requirements set out in Notes 1 and 2 on the form.

In terms of Note 1, a full description of all the facts that are required to decide the appeal must be provided in chronological order. If the space provided is insufficient, the facts should be provided in a separate document and attached to this form.

In terms of Note 2, all supporting documents must be listed and attached to the form in chronological order and must be sequentially numbered.

The letter states that a full description of the facts should be provided in a covering letter attached to the DA 51 form. It is suggested that such a covering letter should be structured as follows, although the structure could differ, depending on the nature of each case: background/introduction, grounds for appeal, chronological events, legislation, relevant facts, mitigating factors, request, and supporting documents.

Sars Client Survey
Sars recently issued a letter titled ‘Quarterly Report: Feed-back in Respect of Customer Satisfaction – July 1 to September 30, 2009’.

According to Sars, during this period, only five responses were submitted electronically by its clients.

The responses received included one from Durban International Airport and four for the Cape Town customs branch office. Should you be interested in taking part in Sars’ ‘External Survey – Customer Satisfaction’, simply visit https://commerce.sars.gov.za/CQS/CustSatFeedSurvey.aspx.

NAMC Registration of Directly Affected Groups
The National Agricultural Marketing Council (NAMC) has extended an invitation to those who wish to register as directly affected group in terms of the Marketing of Agri-cultural Products Act.

The NAMC is updating its register of directly affected groups for each commodity in the agriculture sector.
A ‘directly affected group’ is any group of persons which is party to the production, sale, purchase, processing or consumption of an agricultural product and includes labour employed in the production or processing of such a product.

Customs Duty on Pigments
On February 26, a notice appeared in respect of the proposed increase in the rate of customs duty on pigments and preparations based on chrome oxide green, lead chromate, zinc chromate, barium chromate or strontium chromate, inorganic pigments classifiable under tariff subheading 3206.20.10 from free of customs duty to 10% ad valorem; and the possible reinstatement of Rebate Items 306.04/3206.20/ 01.06 and 311.01/32.06/01.00, which existed prior to the introduction of tariff subheading 3206.20.10.

Comment is due by March 26.

Vulcanised Rubber Tariff Amendments
On February 26, a notice appeared in respect of the amendment of tariff subheading 4009.21 to make provision for tubes, pipes and hoses of vulcanised rubber (excluding hard rubber), reinforced or otherwise combined with any metal, without fittings, and with an inside diameter of 100 mm or less, at a customs duty rate of zero.

The initial application was lodged by Aplhagomma South Africa, which reasoned that the product is not manufactured in the Southern African Customs Union (Sacu) region and that no justification exists for the current rate of duty.

Preliminary Determination: Picks from India
On February 19, a notice appeared in respect of the preliminary determination in the investigation into the alleged dumping of picks originating in or imported from India.

The application was lodged by Ussher Inventions, which trades as Lasher Tools.

According to the notice, a preliminary determination was made that picks were being dumped on the Sacu market; however, it was also indicated that there was currently no threat of material injury to the Sacu industry. Based on this, a preliminary determination was published to recommend to the Minister of Trade and Indus- try to terminate the investigation.
All interested parties should provide comments by March 19.