{"id":105149,"date":"2015-11-25T11:16:02","date_gmt":"2015-11-25T09:16:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=105149"},"modified":"2015-11-25T11:16:02","modified_gmt":"2015-11-25T09:16:02","slug":"south-african-tax-dodgers-are-screwed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/105149\/south-african-tax-dodgers-are-screwed\/","title":{"rendered":"South African tax dodgers are screwed"},"content":{"rendered":"

The South African Revenue Services (<\/span>SARS) will come down hard on South African tax evaders who hide or withhold information relating undeclared offshore funds.<\/p>\n

From 2016, the Common Reporting Standard (CRS) will come into operation, effectively making tax evasion impossible.<\/p>\n

The CRS is a set of global standards that govern how participating tax authorities exchange information with each other about the financial assets of its taxpayers.<\/p>\n

It was drawn up by the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD), on behalf of the G20 countries – and over 70 countries have signed up, including South Africa.<\/p>\n

According to fiduciary specialist at AlphaWealth, Judy Snyman, under the Tax Administration Act, the penalties which SARS may impose on tax evaders are capped at 10% for intentional tax evasion and 5% for gross negligence where a taxpayer makes a voluntary disclosure before notification of an audit.<\/p>\n

If, however, these funds are found out after notification of an audit, the penalties increase to 75% and 50%, respectively.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe penalties for breach of exchange control regulations imposed by the Reserve Bank are determined on a case by case basis, but these are also likely to be significantly higher once the CRS comes into operation,\u201d Snyman said.<\/p>\n

In September it was reported that as much as R10.8 billion leaves South African shores illicitly, through undeclared transactions.<\/p>\n

As for South African money ‘hidden’ in Swiss bank accounts, the Financial Transparency Coalition revealed in October that as much as $2 billion (R28 billion) is being held by SA citizens in HSBC Swiss bank accounts.<\/p>\n

Most of the countries who signed up to the CRS, including South Africa, will start collecting data from 1 January 2016 with a view to making the first exchange of data in September 2017.<\/p>\n

There are a few countries including Switzerland that will only start collecting data in 2017 with a view to making the first exchange of data in 2018.<\/p>\n

More on tax evasion<\/h3>\n

How much SA cash is \u2018hidden\u2019 in Swiss banks<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

HSBC apologises for alleged tax dodging<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Fighting the $53 billion global tax dodging trends<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

R10.8 billion illegally transferred out of South Africa<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SARS will come down hard on South African tax evaders who are hiding or withholding information relating undeclared offshore funds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":87782,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[9607,26,3246,6183],"class_list":["post-105149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-alphawealth","tag-headline","tag-sars","tag-taxes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105149"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105149\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":105163,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105149\/revisions\/105163"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}