A New Initiative to Boost Cross Border Ecommerce Sales

The South African Revenue Service (SARS) held a preliminary meeting with EFSA recently. As part of its rollout of a new project, “Authorised Economic Operator” (AEO) which will accredit traders for fast line treatment when exporting. SARS will combine this with its work to encourage SMEs in South Africa. Further meetings with SARS are planned to discuss promoting the AEO process. One of the major concerns for e-shops is to get their deliveries through customs timeously when selling abroad. As this Newsletter reported, recently the Deputy Director of SARS said that SARS was embracing e-documentation to speed up the movement of parcels/packages through the borders. The AEO project will benefit from that process. To be registered as an AEO e-shop SARS will require evidence of good tax behaviour.