The high cost in SA when receiving gifts from abroad

Wendy Knowler
Wendy Knowler
 Did  you know that if a relative or friend sends you a gift from overseas, via post or courier, and its declared value is the dollar or pound equivalent of more than R400, the SA Revenue Service will disqualify it as a gift and you’ll be forced to pay customs charges?

Thanks to the recent dramatic devaluation of the rand, R400 is now just US $29, à26, £19 and A$41, making it very easy for people to unwittingly send a gift which will cost the South African recipient quite a bit to get their hands on.

Believe it or not, that R400 limit was set way back in 1993, when the rand-US dollar exchange rate was less than R4. It’s now more than R13.

So I asked the SA Revenue Service if it had any plans to increase that R400 limit, in light of the devalued rand.

Responding, acting spokesman Luther Lebelo said SARS did not set trade policy, “but is responsible for administering trade laws that are relevant to SARS”.

“Rebates on custom duties are determined by the International Trade Administration Commission of SA within the Department of Economic Development,” he said.

“The rebate dealing with the number and value of gift parcels imported by post was introduced in 1985, and was last amended in 1993.”

I humbly suggest that it’s time the Commission considered increasing that R400 limit to an amount more consistent with current exchange rates.

Shree Moodley’s brother recently moved to the UK, where he spent £175 (R3641) on clothing as a birthday gift for their mother, who lives in Verulam, KwaZulu-Natal, way over the gift value limit of the equivalent of R400.

He then paid DHL Express in the UK another £86 (about R1800) to courier the items, two dresses and a jersey, to Verulam.

“He was not informed when making the payment that an additional fee for duty and VAT was to be paid by the recipient when the package arrived in South Africa,” Moodley told In Your Corner.

That additional fee turned out to be a whopping R2613.

Moodley feels DHL ought to have warned her brother about the R400 gift value limit.

Approached for comment, DHL Express Sub Saharan Africa managing director Hennie Heymans said the company’s terms and conditions of carriage, which the shipper is asked to acknowledge with a signature, “clearly state that the shipper is responsible for the payment of all shipment charges, ancillary charges, duties and taxes owed for services provided by DHL or incurred by DHL on the shipper’s or receiver’s behalf”.

“Our employees can only disclose this (customs) fee once the shipment has arrived in the country and the required VAT and duties have been determined by customs,” he said.

“Guidance” on duties was published on the company’s South African website, he said, and the company would be issuing press releases on the topic ahead of the festive season.

Of course, the most consumer-friendly warning would be for employees who accept parcels destined for South Africa to warn senders of the R400 value-equivalent limit on gifts, and the huge customs duties which the recipients will have to pay in order to get their gift.

l South Africans can receive two gifts per calendar year, sent from abroad, neither exceeding R400 in value. Wines, spirits, tobacco products and perfume are excluded from this “rebate”.

CONTACT: E-mail wendy@knowler.co.za

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