Seychelles launches online payment for taxes on importation

Commissioner of Customs at the launch of the ePayment facility on Wednesday. (Seychelles News Agency) 

The Seychelles Revenue Commission (SRC) has launched its online payment facility for customs services that will allow clients to pay for their taxes on importation via the online portal.

The ePayment facility launched on Wednesday will streamline the payment process for all import and export declarations. This will make operations more efficient and further ease the clearance process for traders including business entities and individuals.

"This will help our staff as they will have much less to deal with compared to before, where clients will now no longer need to come to the cashiers for payments, while clients will also benefit by not needing to go all the way to ports to make their payments," explained the Commissioner of Customs at the SRC, Paul Barrack, during the official launch.  

A demonstration of the system was done to show and to gain access, one must have firstly been advised by Customs or their preferred courier agent of a consignment valued between SCR3000 ($221) to SCR5000 ($368) or a Customs Declaration (Bill of Entry) requiring payment.

To pay for a consignment using the ePayment facility, the user must email a copy of their identification card, pending slip, contact details comprising of both email address, phone and WhatsApp number, copies of invoices plus freight details to aircargoexamination@src.gov.sc  to register for ePayment.

Once registered, a payment link will be shared through the Customer's WhatsApp and email to proceed with the payment. Upon successful registration, an acceptance email and WhatsApp notification will be shared with the customer to start accepting ePayment requests.

For those paying for their Customs Declaration (Bill of Entry) online, especially traders, business entities and declarants, the ePayment registration form available in the download section via src.gov.sc must be completed and emailed to cvo@src.gov.sc under the subject 'ePayment Registration Request'.

This platform will at the moment make payments related to imports and exports only but the SRC will be looking to move into their other services in the future.

"This platform will be applicable for our services, but there will be some adjustments that will need to be made before that happens so that everything can run seamlessly," Barrack added.

The facility is part of the SRC digitalisation process that started last year with several services offered online. It is through a collaboration with the Economic Partnership Agreement of the European Union that the SRC has managed to enhance and modernise the ASYCUDA system by introducing the ePayment module.

The manager of airport cargo, Simone Didon, one of the focal persons for this project said, "It was three weeks ago that we made a soft roll out of the ePayment facility to the selected users to allow them to get a feel of the newly introduced module, to test its efficacy, speed and reliability. Now that we are fully satisfied with the product we are encouraging the trading community and the public, once having been contacted by Customs or upon advisory of their courier agent, to use the ePayment facility to expedite their transaction with customs."