SARS boss talks compliance interventions and results by the tax body
The commissioner of the South African Revenue Service (SARS), Edward Kieswetter, told Parliament on Tuesday (9 November) that the tax agency is encouraged by the measured progress in rebuilding it into a smart, modern institution.
Kieswetter said that SARS has collected more than R1.55 trillion in gross tax, which comprises a net of R1.25 trillion of the revenue estimate – R38 billion more than the revised estimate.
Refunds paid amounted to R300.6 billion, R20 billion more than 2019/2020.
“Our specific compliance interventions to detect and deter non-compliance yielded R172 billion, which shows room to improve compliance levels across all tax types,” he said. This dovetails with SARS’ strategic objective of making it costly for those who are willfully non-compliant.
In addition, R38.9 billion had been granted in Covid-19 relief measures and trade to the value of R2.6 trillion had been facilitated in accordance with the SARS mandate.
Kieswetter said that tax compliance levels are under strain, with a composite compliance level of 62.61%, compared to the previous year of 65.05%. The Public Confidence Survey points to favourable preference for tax morality, but that has not seen an appreciable rise in compliance.
The commissioner said the tax base is broadening with 1.6 million taxpayers added to the SARS tax register – resulting in R4.6 billion added to the net collections for the year under review.
“Our strategic objective to make it easy and simple for taxpayers to comply has also yielded impressive results: 86.3% of SARS interactions done through digital channels such as eFiling and the MobiApp”.
The commissioner warned however that the impact and prevalence of corruption and waste was not helpful in enhancing tax morale within society.
“In addition, 83.2% of standard taxpayers – 3.4 million – had received auto-assessments based on third party data available to SARS. All taxpayers needed to do was to click accept or edit. The effectiveness of these channels are also indicated by the fact that R1.55 trillion was collected via eFiling.”
SARS’ enforcement efforts are also yielding results, having recovered R147 million from personal protective equipment (PPE) fraud, there was a conviction rate of 96% rate through collaboration with the NPA.
Kieswetter said that the tax body’s newly launched High Wealth Individual Segment has written 1,400 direct letters to wealthy individuals and 275 have already been reviewed. Equally, SARS has also detected 26,000 unregistered taxpayers who have financial assets with economic activity in excess of R1 million.
A focus area has been the compliance levels of the various segments, such as Employers; SMME; Large Businesses & International and High Wealth Individuals. In addition, compliance levels of tax products such as PAYE, CIT has been a concern, and SARS has embarked on focused programmes to address this trend.
Read: SARS signs heavy-hitter to go after wealthy taxpayers in South Africa
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