Taxman looks for trillion rands

SARS said some media have incorrectly inflated its revenue collection target for 2017.

This comes after reports that Sars aimed to collect over R1.6 trillion this tax season, though warning that the technical recession could have an impact.

Sars Commissioner Tom Moyane, together with Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba, officially launched the 2017 tax season at a Sars branch in Orlando East in Soweto on Monday morning.

“Sars has noted media reports that give an incorrect revenue target for the 2017/18 financial year following the launch of the tax season by Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba and Commissioner Tom Moyane in Soweto yesterday,” the revenue service said in a statement. Sars wishes to inform the media that the new revenue target for the 2017/18 financial year is R1.265 trillion.”

Sars said this figure was determined by the Revenue Analysis Working Committee comprising of the National Treasury, South African Reserve Bank and Sars, which analyses and forecasts economic developments. Sars has for the past two years broken the trillion rand mark, with the preliminary outcome for the 2016/17 financial year totalling R1.144 trillion.

“This extraordinary revenue target has been set in a strained economic environment and will see Sars put in extra effort to continue to bolster the national purse.”

The tax season is an chance for taxpayers to reconcile their personal income and tax-related deductions with Sars. This allows Sars to assess if there were any factors that were not accounted for over the tax year, thus ensuring that the taxpayer is compliant. Last year during Tax Season, Sars received 6.31 million income tax returns. – ANA