I asked around. I am not the only one among middle-class professionals, and in the working class, that the South African Revenue Service (SARS) seems to target for verifications, and even audits or final letters of demand for what SARS has realised it missed years ago.
It’s a crackdown on easy targets, the easy way to tick box institutional performance targets in high numbers. Chasing cents from ordinary taxpayers is a lot easier — and good for the stats — than tackling high fliers with enough resources to ensure staying just on the right side of tax avoidance.
Late at night on 16 February 2022, it was my turn to get the SARS equivalent of a pink letter.
“PIT [personal income tax] Enforcement”, is the heading in a clear show SARS works from the basis I somehow did wrong.
I did not.
For context: in the 2021 tax year I paid in well over a couple of hundreds of thousand of rands in tax, and claimed doctors, medicines and surgery expenses of around R34,000, leading to a tax refund of a little more than R8,450 paid into my bank account on 29 December 2021.
All claims are backed up by receipts. My long-standing and long-suffering tax accountant has a rather conservative approach: even if a deduction is permitted — no receipt, no claim. I curse when I lose those blerrie slippies. I lost plenty, and I can’t even claim for working from home because my kitchen table doesn’t qualify.
Back to that late-night “personal income tax enforcement” email. It was followed on 17 February 2022 by an early morning SMS:
“Dear Taxpayer… Please note that additional supporting documents are required by the SARS official working on your income tax assessment verification case…”
But on 29 December 2021 SARS had paid into my bank account the R8,456.39 refund that was held in abeyance pending “verification”. A nice 2022 pressie, I thought as I was recovering from Covid-19. After all, any reasonable person would believe SARS had paid the refund only because their verification checks and so on confirmed it was indeed due — and that it was a case of Case Closed.
Clearly not.
And so that 16 February 2022 late-night “enforcement” email/early-morning SMS resumed my “verification” that had started three months earlier.
On 9 November 2021, the SARS SMS said, “Dear Taxpayer… Your SARS Income Tax assessment for 2021 was selected for verification. CaseNo:…”, and was followed a day later by an SMS acknowledging that all requested documents were submitted.
“Dear Taxpayer… Tax year: 2021. SARS has received your supporting documents. Your verification case will be allocated to a SARS official. Note that SARS aims to finalise cases within 21 working days from receipt of supporting documents.”
It took a little longer, but the refund was paid before 2021 was up.
Now it looks like that 29 December 2021 refund was simply for SARS to produce good internal targets of so-called completed cases — without the cases actually being finalised, or completed. In chasing ordinary taxpayers’ cents, clearly SARS reserves the right to do as it wishes.
In my case, SARS now wants “proof of payment” through my bank statements of those medical, medicines, doctors and surgery payments for which I already have submitted receipts for — and what’s called a “detailed member tax report by beneficiary” from my medical aid.
You don’t even have to read between the lines — SARS thinks I diddled.
So I went to the bank — the teller and I had a good chinwag and mutual shrug of how nothing can be done about SARS demands but comply — and I got that line-by-line item breakdown from the medical aid.
The cost of a year’s worth of current and credit card bank statements? Never mind, they are bank-stamped so SARS can’t come back to say I fiddled. The cost of holding on to speak to someone at the medical aid? Again, never mind.
I have resources — and unlike many, I don’t have to sacrifice a day’s wages to go queue at the tax office to get stuff sorted.
Judging by the queues at the SARS central Cape Town office, going around the block from early in the morning for the past ten days, the tax collector is clearly on a plug.
Yes, SARS is under pressure to collect for the national purse amid a stalled economy and rising need for social safety measures against hunger and poverty. Yes, SARS has to re-embed the tax compliance that plummeted in the State Capture years, and its own internal wracking.
I believe in paying taxes because it’s for the public good, particularly in a country of such steep, stubborn poverty and inequality such as South Africa. And, yes, my private bank statements that I am forced to disclose given SARS’ posture of alleging guilt, miss only two receipt-backed claims totalling less than R450 paid in cash, clearly. SARS’ talk of “enforcement”, “verification” and “case number” in its posture of guilty-until-you-prove-yourself-not, grinds.
It grinds particularly in the absence of demonstrable action against high fliers who, alongside State Capture beneficiaries and also the tobacco, booze and other smugglers, don’t seem to be taken to tax task, or even to tax litigation.
Chasing the cents from working and middle-class taxpayers, while giving a free pass to those who enrich themselves by the millions is, if not an abuse of public power, then at least penny-wise, pound-foolish.
It means the tax collector fritters away public trust — and public goodwill.
And as SARS should well know, public goodwill is priceless. DM
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