4 weeks to go – another week passes and paperwork piles up

The theme of this week is paperwork. Specifically, South African bureaucratic paperwork and the extraordinary lengths they go to, to complicate things.

Considering there is a big “Home Coming Revolution” government-endorsed campaign on the go, encouraging South Africans and their hard earned foreign cash to return home, it doesn’t make sense why its SO hard to fill in the relevant forms.

I am still not entirely sure which form to fill in as each time I ask for information it is slightly different. There are 2 forms to fill in before leaving: a form to get a letter from SARS and a form to go to ITAC that will also produce a letter. Each of these forms requires certified copies of all kinds of things and letters from suppliers and so on – I should have started these months ago. I MUST have both these very important letters prior to arriving in South Africa. I cannot even drive my bike over the border without these letters. In fact, I have to arrange for my father to meet me at the border with letters and money to pay Customs and Excise tax on arrival. I will not know the value of the bike to pay the tax at the border but have been advised to get resale values before I leave the UK; so that on arrival, twenty thousand miles later, I won’t pay more than it was worth here.

Here’s the other thing. Returning South Africans can return with certain of their worldly possessions tax-free. However, to apply for this returning status requires providing proof you lived abroad permanently. In order to do this you have to provide a list of proofs that make no sense at all and fill in yet another form. Quite frankly, I’ll give that a skip and just pay the import tax. I mean, I’ve been living and paying tax abroad for 8 years and that is not considered proof. Not even if you produce every pay slip you’ve received over the years.

A whole week has passed and I’ve not managed to fill in all the dreaded forms.

On the upside: passports are at the Ethiopian Embassy and all going well we will collect them on Monday with nice freshly stamped visas. I might never get into SA with my bike but at least I will get to enjoy Ethiopia.