{"id":841483,"date":"2025-10-31T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-10-31T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=841483"},"modified":"2025-10-31T10:22:31","modified_gmt":"2025-10-31T08:22:31","slug":"edward-kieswetter-scores-r10-8-million-payday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/finance\/841483\/edward-kieswetter-scores-r10-8-million-payday\/","title":{"rendered":"Edward Kieswetter scores R10.8 million payday"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

South African Revenue Service (SARS) Commissioner, Edward Kieswetter, earned a salary of R10.8 million in the 2024\/25 financial year, down slightly from his R11.7 million take in 2023\/24.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The remuneration details were published in the SARS annual report for 2024\/25, which was released on Friday (31 October).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Total remuneration for SARS executives came to R33.1 million for the year, down from the R40 million paid in the previous year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The lower payout is because 2024 saw the revenue service pay various executives smaller amounts for short-term work (around 2 months) as SARS restructured its exco.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In June 2023, SARS appointed a new Executive Committee comprising the Commissioner and three Deputy Commissioners. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Johnstone Makhubu, who served as the Chief Revenue Officer until May 2023, was appointed as the Deputy Commissioner of Taxpayer Engagement and Operations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Carl Scholtz was appointed as the Deputy Commissioner of Enterprise Strategy and Modernisation, and Bridgitte Backman was appointed as the Deputy Commissioner of Corporate and Enterprise Services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Therefore, the 2025 payouts to executives covered only the commissioner, chief of staff and the three deputy commissioners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among the executives, Kieswetter was the highest paid, with his total remuneration comprising a base salary of R8 million, a bonus of R2 million and allowances and UIF contributions amounting to R300,000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kieswetter was also awarded a settlement of close to R500,000 relating to a wage dispute dating back to 2019. This settlement was reached with several other employees. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

SARS said the settlement resulted in a once-off cash payment, in lieu of annual increases, was paid to SARS employees who were in the entity\u2019s employment as at 31 March 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Notably, the reduction in Kieswetter’s pay for 2025 versus 2024 is due to the smaller performance bonus, which was over R3.6 million last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Performance bonuses across the group were lower in 2025, with R516 million paid out to employees compared to the R714 million paid in 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

SARS performance<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Kieswetter’s pay and bonuses are directly tied to the impressive turnaround at the revenue service over the past five years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SARS was gutted and severely impeded during the state capture years, and Kieswetter\u2014who was appointed in 2019\u2014has done a remarkable job in building the group back into one of the best-run state entities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 2024\/25 financial year was another year of great performance for the group, achieving 90% of its key targets as laid out in its Annual Performance Plan. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was happening at the same time that South Africa was experiencing overwhelming economic challenges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The revenue service collected net revenue of R1.855 trillion, which was R8.9 billion above the Revised Estimate set by the National Treasury, representing a year-on-year growth of R114.4 billion (6.6%). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The net revenue was derived from R2.30 trillion in gross revenue collections, up year-on-year by R147.8 billion (6.9%), which was reduced by R447.3 billion in refund payments, up by R33.4 billion (8.1%) from 2023\/24. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It also continued to build its systems and technology to reach even more taxpayers and to simplify compliance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the most notable ways to measure this is the stark growth and acceptance of auto-assessments. In 2024\/25, SARS processed over 5 million auto-assessments, a 30% increase from the year before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another key focus of Kieswetter’s SARS was clamping down on non-compliance and fraud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the revenue service paid out R447 billion in refunds, it also identified and blocked R148 billion worth of impermissible refunds and revenue leakage due to fraud and abuse of the system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The SARS Compliance Programme also covered comprehensive administrative and enforcement actions, increasing by 16.7% from the prior year and finding another R304.0 billion from tax avoiders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By all accounts, Kieswetter\u2019s time at SARS has been incredibly successful, although not without its challenges. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The commissioner’s original contract was set to end in April 2024, but President Cyril Ramaphosa extended his contract for two more years, now set to end in 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A succession plan is in place, with Deputy Commissioner Johnstone Makhubu tipped to be the next in line.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SARS commissioner Edward Kieswetter earned a healthy salary in 2025, with his exit from the tax office coming up on the horizon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":824239,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11121],"tags":[19467,3246],"class_list":["post-841483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance","tag-edward-kieswetter","tag-sars"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/841483","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=841483"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/841483\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":841494,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/841483\/revisions\/841494"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/824239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=841483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=841483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=841483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}