The South African Revenue Service (SARS) has received more than 1.5 million tax returns since the filing period for Tax Season 2009 opened on 1 July this year.

This represents a 52.64% increase in the number of returns submitted for the same period last year – the first 11 weeks of the 2008 Tax Season. By this time last year SARS had received 959 000 returns. There has been an encouraging trend this year of taxpayers submitting their returns far earlier during the filing period than in previous years.

In addition, eFiling continues to grow impressively. Since 1 July 2009 more than 830 000 taxpayers have already used the internet to submit their returns and it is anticipated that the number of registered eFiling users will increase to over 2.5 million. For the same period last year 479 000 taxpayers had submitted using eFiling.

Taxpayers and tax practitioners are commended for this drive to be tax compliant! The result is a better South Africa for all!

Yours truly,
Stiaan Klue
Chief Executive

When it comes to the payment of tax which is disputed by a taxpayer, our tax law is premised on the principle of pay now, argue later. What this means is that if a taxpayer finds him or herself in a dispute with the South African Revenue Service ("SARS"), our tax legislation provides that the payment of tax is not suspended until the dispute is resolved. Rather, the taxpayer will be obliged to pay the disputed tax, unless the Commissioner for SARS ("the Commissioner") decides otherwise.

South Africa is not getting value for money from its spending on education, health care and other services, according to Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan. "I remain concerned that the outputs and outcomes are lagging the massive investments we are making," Gordhan said yesterday.

The UK ADIT qulification was officially launchd this week by the Chief Executive of the CIOT UK, Mr Peter Fanning. The launch was attended by inernational tax experts and other interested parties.

The Institute this year commended four individuals in South Africa for their outstanding contribution to the South African tax profession, reseach and jurisprudence.

The South African Revenue Service (SARS) this week embarked on the second phase of a clean-up of the Value Added Tax (VAT) register aimed at removing non-compliant vendors. The first phase of the clean-up of the register resulted in 20 665 VAT vendors identified for possible deregistration due to them not meeting the legal requirements for registration. In terms of the second phase, additional VAT vendors who do not meet the requirements of the VAT Act will now have their registrations suspended pending an audit process leading to formal deregistration.