Tag: Andre Daniels

The fiscal pressures on South African Revenue Service's (SARS) tax collection appear to have now compelled SARS to actively initiate the arrest and prosecution of taxpayers who do not accurately declare their taxable income. For long time, it has been warned that SARS possesses third-party information from banks, financial institutions, estate agents, car dealerships etc., enabling them to identify those who are not declaring their income correctly.

In the matter of Medtronic International v CSARS (33400-19) ZAGPPHC, Medtronic (the taxpayer) brought a review application against the commissioner of SARS (the commissioner). This was due to the taxpayer being a victim of fraud, perpetuated by a Medtronic employee, to the tune of approximately R460,000,000.00. This ultimately placed the taxpayer in non-compliance with SARS.

Given the number of fraudsters and chance-takers in today’s market, hesitancy on the part of the South African Revenue Service (SARS) is present and well-understood. Rather than simply handing out refunds to every VAT claimant without careful scrutiny, the SARS official appointed to the matter is obligated to correctly apply the law, even though it may take a little longer than expected.

The 2022 Tax Season has started and taxpayers need to be cognisant of their tax compliance and if any outstanding debt is owed to the South African Revenue Service (SARS). As a practice, we are seeing SARS continue to aggressively follow collection steps against taxpayers with outstanding tax debt.

In a recent Tax Court Judgment handed down on 25 February 2022, the court found in favour of an unnamed taxpayer, admonishing South African Revenue Service (SARS) for their persistent disregard for the time limits prescribed in the rules promulgated under Section 103 of the Tax Administration Act, 28 of 2011 (the Rules).