Fuming tax payer takes on SARS

What I found on arrival was a room full of people, probably around 60 to 80 people, all who have been told to sit and wait in a queue.

As the queue slowly moves forward you will eventually be given a ticket.

But it does not end there.

You again have to wait for your ticket number to be displayed and only then do you get attended to.

As the majority of people waiting are personal income tax payers, the likelihood of you waiting up to maybe two or three hours seems extremely credible.

In effect, I have to wait until people with personal income tax problems, or VAT problems, or audit queries to be attended to before I can hand in a letter to SARS officials giving them my new postal address.

Or, as was the case for today’s visit, query why SARS had issued my business income tax number to another entity and why my prior cc tax number appeared under my Pty, which we had changed some seven years earlier.

While I was there a young man came through holding numerous documents.

He said he had been there twice today (Friday, August 16) and had waited many hours to be attended to.

When he left after the second visit, he was given a printed document and told by the SARS official who saw him that all he had to do was show this to the people at the door and he would not have to wait in any queues.

He would be allowed straight in so he could give SARS the documents necessary.

Now here is the punch line, when I spoke to a woman at SARS and explained the position she said it did not matter and he had to join the queue or leave.

I interrupted and asked her to help him with some service.

She ignored me and asked him which cubicle he had been into to which he responded 13.

She said it did not matter and he had to join the queue.

What disgusting service.

This woman was doing absolutely nothing but walking around the nearly empty hall where people who had been awarded tickets sat waiting a second call up to be served.

Surely she could have helped him by taking him through, or taking the documents from him and delivering them herself?

But no, she refused to help him even though one of her colleagues gave him the letter to alleviate the time he would waste in the queue a third time today.

Why does SARS spend millions on advertising claiming how they help people with illnesses when they cannot even have a workable, equitable system, and one in which service is paramount?

We are told SARS is there to help.

What a joke.

This woman proved to all of us within earshot that she did not entertain service, nor was she interested in helping the taxpayers who pay her salary.

When will SARS learn?

If SARS wants everyone to be compliant and helpful by registering as tax payers, paying their taxes, ensuring ther SARS systems are up to date, then they need to know this can only be done through quality service and speedy attendance, in close association with us, the tax payer.

COMMENT – The letter was sent to the media department of the South African Revenue Services for comment on August 20 and comment was requested by August 23.

At the time of going to print no comment had been received.