{"id":272505,"date":"2018-09-19T17:16:08","date_gmt":"2018-09-19T15:16:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=272505"},"modified":"2018-09-20T08:12:07","modified_gmt":"2018-09-20T06:12:07","slug":"tax-ombudsman-to-investigate-sars-over-growing-complaints","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/finance\/272505\/tax-ombudsman-to-investigate-sars-over-growing-complaints\/","title":{"rendered":"Tax ombudsman to investigate SARS over growing complaints"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tax ombudsman, Judge Bernard Makgabo Ngoepe has obtained approval from the minister of finance to conduct two reviews on SARS.<\/p>\n

In a statement<\/a> <\/strong>released on Wednesday (19 September), the ombudsman said that the first review pertains to problems in relation to the fluidity of Pay as You Earn (PAYE) statements of accounts.<\/p>\n

The second review will relate to SARS’s disregard of the timeframes prescribed by the rules for the resolution of disputes.<\/p>\n

“The approach to the minister was prompted by complaints received by the tax ombud from taxpayers and industry bodies,” he said.<\/p>\n

“It is hoped that, as a contribution towards facilitating revenue collection and building confidence in the tax system, necessary recommendations will be made at the end if need be.”<\/p>\n

Other complaints\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

At the end of August the ombudsman released a full breakdown<\/a> <\/strong>of reported complaints against the South African Revenue Service (SARS).<\/p>\n

CEO in the office of the Tax Ombudsman, Eric Mkhawane, said taxpayers and businesses have result increasingly approached the ombudsman to intervene with issues against the taxman.<\/p>\n

“For the Office of the Tax Ombud (OTO), a systemic issue is a particular matter that can be regarded as the underlying cause for a complaint that affects, or will affect, a number of taxpayers in the tax system,” it explained.<\/p>\n

“Systemic issues may arise due to how specific systems in the SARS function; the way in which SARS\u2019s policies, practices or procedures are drafted and implemented; or even the manner in which legislative provisions are applied or disregarded.”<\/p>\n

Five of the most prominent systemic issues identified by the OTO include:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Delay in the payment of refunds<\/li>\n
  2. Incorrect allocation by SARS of payments made by taxpayers<\/li>\n
  3. Taxpayers being affected by employer\u2019s non-compliance with legislation relating to IRP5s<\/li>\n
  4. Inconsistency by SARS in providing taxpayers with timelines for finalisation of audits\/verifications<\/li>\n
  5. Victims of identity theft being held liable for tax debts<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
    \n

    Read:\u00a0Delayed refunds, identity theft, and other major complaints with SARS right now<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Tax ombudsman, Judge Bernard Makgabo Ngoepe, has obtained approval from the minister of finance to conduct two reviews on SARS.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":80497,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11121],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-272505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272505","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=272505"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272505\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":272577,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272505\/revisions\/272577"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}