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PC tax scrapped

By Stephen Whitford, ITWeb contributor
Johannesburg, 03 Apr 2003

The ad valorem excise duty for PCs and some other office equipment was scrapped on 1 April as scheduled, according to the SA Revenue (SARS).

Jaque Deysel, an official of SARS's import/export division, says importers received a letter on Tuesday confirming that the tax was abolished.

According to the letter, PCs, external modems, telephonic equipment, calculating and accounting machines, automatic processing machines, typewriters and word processing machines would not be liable for payment of the ad valorem duties.

Parts of facsimile transmission apparatus will remain liable to payment of ad valorem duties.

Finance minister Trevor Manuel said in his budget speech that the tax was scrapped to benefit both business and consumers investing in IT.

The tax on PCs has long been criticised, as it is difficult to and allowed a window for parts and components to be used to sidestep the tax.

The tax only brought government R572 million out of a total estimated revenue stream of R325 billion for the year and represented a tiny fraction of the R15.1 billion in tax exemptions granted by government.

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