SARS going after South Africans named in Panama Papers
The South African Revenue Service is setting up a special unit to investigate the 1,700 South Africans named in the Panama Papers.
The Panama Papers refers to 11.5 million leaked documents that detail financial and attorney-client information for more than 214,488 offshore entities.
The leaked documents were created by Panamanian law firm and corporate service provider Mossack Fonseca, and were leaked and published by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) in April 2016.
Listed among the names of global leaders, politicians, and Fifa officials, nephew of president Jacob Zuma, Khulubuse Zuma, featured in a list of 140 ‘power players’ caught up in the leak.
It should be noted that the names mentioned in the leak are not necessarily linked with any wrongdoing, as the papers only detail the activity of offshore companies – however, these companies are often linked with tax evasion and other dubious practices.
On Wednesday, SARS executive Vlok Symington told a joint sitting of Parliamentary oversight committees that 1,700 South African residents were identified in the data, including shareholders, directors and beneficiaries of offshore companies.
He said the revenue service has set up a special unit to investigate the matter, and would now identify the level of tax compliance of the individuals by running the information against its own database.
So far, SARS has identified 79 of 560 offshore entities, and linked 81 South Africans to them.
More on the leak
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