A key challenge for the South African economy, is the rebuilding of the South African Revenue Services (SARS). The team from PwC have prepared some interesting research on SARS and how businesses are struggling in their dealings with SARS.

In a 2018 report entitled: “Taxing Times – A survey of corporate taxpayers experiences with SARS”, these are some of the key findings from the PwC team:

– 49% of respondents say SARS never or only sometimes grants extensions for submission of responses to ‘requests for relevant material’.
– 40% say SARS is unreasonable or insistent on delivering on a response even if we have a valid reason for requesting a postponement
– 16% say Verification audits take more than a year to complete.
– 24% of Audits take more than a year to complete and 60% say audits take 3–12 months to complete
– 38% of the respondents say that SARS never complies with Section 42 progress reports while just 2% say SARS always complies with Section 42 progress reports
– 68% say The letter of assessment never, or only sometimes, gives sufficient grounds to understand the basis for the assessment raised.
– 74% indicate “SARS is overly aggressive, half or more of the time, in raising an ‘understatement penalty’ in relation to the particular behaviour that they deem the taxpayer to be guilty of.”

What is abundantly clear is that a SARS dispute can set your business back both financially and in terms of the time it takes to resolve the dispute.

With SARS behind on its collection targets and new leadership expected to try and “right the ship”, there is a likelihood that SARS will be more aggressive with its engagement of business.

If you would like to download the full report, you can click HERE.

If you are currently in a dispute with SARS and need professional assistance, please complete the form below and one of our Problem-Solvers will be in contact with you to assist: