{"id":765319,"date":"2024-04-03T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-04-03T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=765319"},"modified":"2024-04-03T10:24:15","modified_gmt":"2024-04-03T08:24:15","slug":"kieswetter-sends-a-warning-to-taxpayers-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/finance\/765319\/kieswetter-sends-a-warning-to-taxpayers-in-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Kieswetter sends a warning to taxpayers in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>South African Revenue Service (SARS) Commissioner Edward Kieswetter has warned taxpayers to make sure they&#8217;re not getting bad tax advice from tax practitioners who are non-compliant in their own field of expertise. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>SARS, which posted a record tax year for 2023\/24 after coming in R10 billion more than projected, has seen a troubling trend in which <strong>many tax practitioners are themselves non-compliant with tax regulations, with their clients equally delinquent. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-wp-embed is-provider-businesstech wp-block-embed-businesstech\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"uMfZlrczMU\"><a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/finance\/765115\/kieswetters-latest-tax-haul-beats-estimates\/\">Kieswetter&#8217;s latest tax haul beats estimates<\/a><\/blockquote><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);\" title=\"&#8220;Kieswetter&#8217;s latest tax haul beats estimates&#8221; &#8212; BusinessTech\" src=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/finance\/765115\/kieswetters-latest-tax-haul-beats-estimates\/embed\/#?secret=FZWaIH88vs#?secret=uMfZlrczMU\" data-secret=\"uMfZlrczMU\" width=\"500\" height=\"282\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;ve identified 53 tax practitioners who remain non-compliant in their own taxes, which explains, in part, how they advise their clients and why their clients are equally delinquent,&#8221; Kieswetter said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIn one law firm alone, in The Square in Sandton, we found 14 partners of this law firm who underestimated their own provisional taxes.&#8221; <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>SARS has thus started the process of revoking licenses from non-compliant practitioners. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Eight licences have already been revoked, and criminal investigations are underway against others found to be in breach of tax obligations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Darren Britz and Bronwin Richards from Tax Consulting SA said that Kieswetter&#8217;s comments will resonate with those in the industry who consult clients who previously received low-quality and aggressive tax advice, with the new advisor tasked with cleaning up the mess left behind. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;The above observations in future place a lot more focus on firms who promote certain schemes, and taxpayers should take care when they approach tax practitioners,&#8221; Kieswetter added. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Britz and Richards said that not all tax professionals operate with integrity and compliance in terms of their personal tax affairs and those of their clients. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Kieswetter&#8217;s observations serve as a sobering reminder of the risks associated with non-compliant tax practitioners. The repercussions of poor-quality, aggressive tax advice can be severe,&#8221; the experts said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Taxpayers serve well to take heed of Kieswetter&#8217;s warning and choose their tax practitioners wisely.&nbsp;Do your due diligence!&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Read<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/762883\/south-africas-cannabis-sector-looks-to-prove-its-worth-to-government\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">A R28 billion game-changer for South Africa \u2013 but government dragging its feet<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SARS commissioner Edward Kieswetter has warned taxpayers to make sure they&#8217;re not getting advice or services from dodgy tax practitioners who are flubbing their own tax affairs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":753291,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11121],"tags":[26,3246,17897],"class_list":["post-765319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance","tag-headline","tag-sars","tag-tax-consultancy-sa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/765319","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\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=765319"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/765319\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":765359,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/765319\/revisions\/765359"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/753291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=765319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=765319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=765319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}