I WILL ‘VENTILATE’ MY OPINIONS ON SARS INFERRING I AM A CRIMINAL
Dear Mr Kieswetter,
Let me introduce you to one of the taxpayers that you suspect of possible criminal activity; a taxpayer who was selected (wow!) for tax verification. I thought it amusing when I was selected for verification in the previous tax period. Why would you select a 66-year-old taxpayer, who always promptly paid what was owed to Caesar over a working life of 40 years? Moreover, one that also paid his income tax swiftly after retirement?
In any case, you were the new broom, and I admired your focus and diligence in cleaning up SARS. Give that man a chance, if not a Bells, I said to the complainers around me. I felt a little more irritated to be once again selected for verification in February 2022. Had you not verified me last year (and also in previous years)? Was this necessary? My dear wife, also a good and tax-paying citizen, shrugged off her notifications of verification. There is nothing we can do about it, is there?
On 4 March, my wife and I were on our way to a fundraising event for a project in a small Western Cape community.
My amusement – maybe indifference – on the matter of verification turned into red-hot anger the moment you said, in a voice clip on the six o’clock news on Radio Sonder Grense (RSG), that verification is needed also to detect possible criminal activity. So, Mr Kieswetter, our esteemed commissioner of SARS, just so that you know, I feel deeply offended to be viewed as perhaps involved in criminal activities. It is bullying, as other wiser persons have suggested. You had me in tears of laughter with your view about Marianne Merten: “It is regrettable when journalists use the privilege of their platform to ventilate their personal tax affairs.” My dear Sir, do not feel regret that I, as a pensioner, use whatever platform I can get, “to ventilate my personal tax affairs”.
My enthusiasm for your appointment as SARS commissioner has vanished; my attitude towards civil duty as a citizen is bruised. Based on your enforcement of verification, I mistrust the state’s interpretation of social justice. Nevertheless, we, the people, shall overcome.
Frik and Linda de Beer