In February 2021, SARS issued a media release that SARS had received from 87 jurisdictions across the world, information detailing the offshore financial assets of South African taxpayers and that SARS intended to undertake a careful review of the information and audit it, where necessary.

A focal point of the 2021 Budget Review relates to the proposed strengthening of SARS. Numerous recommendations made by the Nugent Commission to address governance failures at SARS have, to date, been implemented, including the re-establishment of the Large Business Centre, as well as units within SARS focussing on litigation, compliance and integrity.

In current economic times, some taxpayers may prefer to follow the “head-in-sand” approach when it comes to outstanding tax debts it has no means of paying. Unfortunately, this approach will not make the tax debt go away, but rather give rise to interest being levied in respect thereof. 

SARS recently came up with the new initiative of creating auto-assessments for taxpayers. SARS makes use of data they receive from employers, financial institutions, medical schemes, retirement annuity fund administrators and other 3rd party data providers to create the auto-assessment.

With the Minister having recently announced the R3 billion spending allocation towards the enhancement of SARS enforcement with a particular focus on transfer pricing, it is highly probable that we will be seeing more queries and audits in this area.