Recently, Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan announced that South Africans will face an additional tax on the purchase of a new passenger vehicle. If you buy a car that emits more than 120g/km of carbon, you will be charged an extra R75 for each and every gram above the limit.

The specifications of the cars currently on the market reveals that not a single car falls under this bracket. Commentators are of the opinion that “the intentions are very noble, but the execution has the smell of greed.”

The introduction of a carbon tax could however have the biggest single impact on cutting South Africa's emissions of the greenhouse gases that cause climate change. This was outlined in the government's scientific study released in 2008 outlining scenarios for mitigating emissions. The study forecasts that South Africa's emissions of carbon dioxide equivalent, if left unchecked, would quadruple by 2050 from a base of 440 million tons in 2003. The study projected that an escalating carbon tax would have the effect of cutting emissions by more than 600 million tons by 2050. This amounts to twice the size of the reduction of any other single intervention.

The question arises on the moral dilemma the government is facing. As the leaders of the country, will government officials set the example for the rest of us and trade their BMW’s for a Prius?

Yours truly,
Stiaan Klue

In TCT Leisure (Pty) Ltd v CSARS [2010] ZASCA 10 a taxpayer who had previously engaged in the business of selling time-share “points” on which VAT was payable, underwent a so-called “restructuring”. The objective of the restructuring was to enable the company to carry on much the same kind of business as before, but on a VAT-exempt basis on the grounds that it was now engaged in supplying VAT-exempt services.

Prop24.com (23 March 2010) quotes Heather Briggs of Shepstone & Wylie Attorneys as saying that recently SARS has embarked on a thorough investigation into a person’s tax affairs when assessing documents for the purpose of transfer duty. They delay the issue of the transfer duty receipt if there is any unpaid PAYE, SITE, income tax or outstanding tax or VAT returns. This practice delays the issue of the transfer duty receipt and, in turn, the registration of the transfer of the property.

Some taxpayers do not claim their refunds due to tax ignorance, consultants Ernst & Young said on Thursday. "These are the lower income earners, the very ones that government has indicated that they wish most of the tax relief to go to," Vedika Andhee, director for Tax at Ernst & Young said in a statement.

The Supreme Court of Appeal decision in Defy Ltd v CSARS [2010] ZASCA 11 concerned the liability of Defy Ltd for STC in respect of a particular dividend cycle. The central issue was whether, in anticipation of its liquidation, the company had paid a dividend that represented a distribution of "profits of a capital nature" as envisaged in s 64B(5)(c) of the Income Tax Act 58 of 1962 in which event the distribution would be exempt from STC, or whether the dividend did not qualify for such an exemption.

In TCT Leisure (Pty) Ltd v CSARS [2010] ZASCA 10 a taxpayer who had previously engaged in the business of selling time-share “points” on which VAT was payable, underwent a so-called “restructuring”. The objective of the restructuring was to enable the company to carry on much the same kind of business as before, but on a VAT-exempt basis on the grounds that it was now engaged in supplying VAT-exempt services.

The Chief Executive, Stiaan Klue, was cited in the following media regarding the call for a Tax Ombudsman in South Africa.

The final report for the budget hearings has been published by Parliament.

The South African Qualifications Authority invited SAIT to a public meeting of established statutory and non-statutory professional bodies to be held on Wednesday 21 April 2010 in Benoni.

A SARS official and an accomplice(posing as a SARS employee) have appeared in a Port Elizabeth court on the 23 March 2010 for attempting to solicit a bribe from a Port Elizabeth couple for assistance with their tax problems. The 43 year old SARS employee, Robert Fortuin and 36 year old accomplice, Tommy Sysaar, an employee at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Municipality were arrested on Friday, 19 March 2010 and spent the long weekend in jail.

From 1 April 2010, the South African Revenue Service will NO LONGER accept cheque payments made using the abbreviation ‘SARS’. All cheques must from 1 April 2010 be made out to “South African Revenue Service”.

On 18 March 2010 SARS updated the average exchange rates. The South African Reserve Bank publishes weighted average exchange rates, based on the foreign exchange transactions of commercial banks, on a quarterly basis. These rates may be used in the determination of the average exchange rate as required in the Act and are supplied on this web page to enable stakeholders (taxpayers) to use it for this purpose.