{"id":883382,"date":"2026-11-09T15:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-11-09T13:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=883382"},"modified":"2026-11-09T15:26:08","modified_gmt":"2026-11-09T13:26:08","slug":"sars-making-big-auto-assessment-changes-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/finance\/883382\/sars-making-big-auto-assessment-changes-in-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"SARS making big auto assessment change in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The South African Revenue Service (SARS) has big plans to modernise its systems and is pushing toward greater automation, including for Value Added Tax (VAT).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The taxman has now been allocated additional funding in the mid-term budget specifically for this purpose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana tables his Medium Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS) in October.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As part of the updated budget, the National Treasury also submitted the Special Appropriation Bill 2026, which provides for an additional R6.9 billion beyond the Adjustments Appropriation Bill. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The funding covered four allocations, the largest of which was for SARS to accelerate its modernisation programme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking to 702<\/strong><\/a> after the Budget, SARS Commissioner Johnstone Makhubu said that SARS expects to receive an additional in-year allocation of between R4 billion and R4.5 billion from National Treasury.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said this money will be used to accelerate SARS’s modernisation programme and target areas where a tax gap exists in the ecosystem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Specifically, Makhubu said the funding will be used to enhance technology, including deploying track-and-trace systems for accessible products and replacing outdated markers used to detect fuel adulteration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The additional funding will also be directed towards other modernisation goals, including VAT modernisation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Earlier this year, SARS published a VAT Modernisation Consultation Paper, where it laid out its aspirations for “a future in which tax just happens” by leveraging data and technology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Broadly, the VAT modernisation plan is similar to that of the income tax modernisation that has taken place over the past decade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This means using data science, artificial intelligence, and digital services and embedding them into the VAT ecosystem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The direction for VAT modernisation is to connect SARS across the VAT value chain to every point of sale, using e-Invoices, an Interoperability Framework and e-Reporting,” SARS said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This will “enable trusted, structured, and near real-time transactional data flows”. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The end goal, the tax service said, is to lay the foundation for SARS-led VAT auto-assessment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Auto assessments for individual taxpayers were introduced in 2021 and have expanded rapidly, bringing more South Africans onto the system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over 6 million taxpayers were auto-assessed in 2026, and this is expected to increase again in 2027.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The technology has revolutionised the taxman’s collection capabilities and is currently being expanded to provisional taxpayers on a trial basis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SARS targets are going up<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

SARS\u00a0tax collections in 2026 have overshot the targets set in the February Budget, prompting the National Treasury to raise the bar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the MTBPS, Godongwana announced a new revised estimate for tax collections at a record R2.144 trillion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is an increase of R17.1 billion compared to the R2.127 trillion February 2026 Budget estimate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the time, the national tax service noted that the upward adjustment to the target came despite deteriorating economic conditions, with the Treasury cutting its 2026 GDP growth forecast from 1.6% to 1.2%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDespite improved electricity reliability, which supports economic activity, structural constraints such as logistics and infrastructure challenges continue to hinder South Africa\u2019s growth prospects,\u201d SARS said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nevertheless, the year-to-date tax collections show that the country\u2019s revenue system is resilient.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To this point, SARS Commissioner Makhubu noted that, as of 30 September 2026 (H1 2026), the taxman collected R992.2 billion in net revenue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This includes gross collections of R1.231 trillion and refund payments totalling R239.1 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Net revenue was R15.5 billion, or 1.6%, above the February 2026 Budget estimate, and R67.4 billion, or 7.3%, higher than the corresponding period last year, highlighting the outperformance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While SARS has delivered significant refunds to taxpayers, it has also ramped up its pursuit of non-compliant taxpayers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the first six months of the financial year, compliance interventions secured a preliminary R137.7 billion, the commissioner said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This comprised R76.3 billion in direct cash collections and a further R61.3 billion in prevented revenue leakage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SARS has big plans to modernise its systems and is pushing toward even greater automation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":856917,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"posted","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"2119785839441940814","_sma_facebook_post_id":"191437357620492_2266974440789621","_sma_instagram_post_id":"17915484954288738","_sma_x_attempts":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11121],"tags":[23094,3246,7438],"class_list":["post-883382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance","tag-auto-assessment","tag-sars","tag-vat"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/883382","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=883382"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/883382\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":883424,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/883382\/revisions\/883424"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/856917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=883382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=883382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=883382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}