SARS crackdown on illegal activities nets $451m

– 300pc more than the previous year

JOHANNESBURG - The South African Revenue Service (SARS) recovered R8.2 billion in revenue from criminal and illicit economic activities in the 2021/22 financial year – up 331 percent from R1.9 billion in the previous year.

This was also much higher than the tax body’s target of R2.5 billion.

The annual report said the SARS Criminal and Illicit Economic Activities division finalised 385 preliminary investigations spanning fuel, tobacco, alcohol, clothing and textiles, leather and footwear, VAT issues in the gold sector, "phoenixism" (where a liquidated company re-emerges as a new entity), abusive liquidation and business rescue practices, illicit financial flows, and tax evasion.

Commissioner Edward Kieswetter said SARS had a 97.67 percent success rate in the number of cases SARS took to court for prosecution.

Over the past year, SARS collected R1.564 trillion in tax revenue, which is R16.7 billion more than the final estimate of R1.547 trillion.

It is also 25 percent more than the previous year - and a 15.3 percent increase over the pre-pandemic 2019 year.

"Continued focus will be on increasing our capability to improve debt collection, implementing various recommendations on the tax compliance of companies and high wealth individuals, fasttrack criminal investigations and counter illicit practices, as well as shaping the policy and approach to increase revenue collections and service to the informal economic sector," said Kieswetter.

Kieswetter said in the 2021/22 financial year 90.74 percent of taxpayers and traders used digital and self-help platforms to interact with SARS.