Impasse to delay tabling of annual report —SARS
A dispute between the South African Revenue Service (SARS) and the auditor-general has meant that SARS was not able to table its annual financial statements in Parliament by Friday as required by the Public Finance Management Act.
In a letter to the chairman of Parliament’s standing committee of finance, Yunus Carrim, commissioner Tom Moyane says that SARS and the auditorgeneral “have reached an impasse concerning the correct interpretation of section 18 (3) of the SARS Act”.
This section states that the minister of finance must approve the terms and conditions of employment for any class of employees in the management structure of SARS.
DA finance spokesman David Maynier said that the impasse “evidently points to a controversy surrounding ministerial approval of terms of conditions for employees in senior management at SARS”.
In his letter, Moyane asks Carrim for a postponement of the scheduled appearance of SARS before the finance committee on Thursday next week because the annual report would not be tabled in time. “The SARS own accounts audit report for the financial year ending 31 March 2017 was due for submission by the auditor-general on 31 July 2017,” Moyane writes.
“Due to an unresolved matter between SARS and the [auditorgeneral] SARS faces a challenge regarding the tabling of its annual report on 29 September 2017 and appearance for the tabling to the standing committee on finance on the 5th of October as requested.”
Moyane said the auditorgeneral had raised the matter in dispute very late in the audit and SARS believed it could be resolved within time. He said the matter was receiving “urgent attention” but might not be resolved in time for the annual financial statements to be tabled by Friday.
“SARS anticipates that it will be able to present its annual report at the end of November pending the engagements with the [auditor-general],” he said.