SEDIBENG.- The South African Revenue Service (SARS) accepted the increased revenue collection estimate announced by Minister of Finance,  Enoch Godongwana.

In his 2023 Budget Speech, the Minister increased the revenue estimate to R1.69 trillion, an increase of R93.7 billion from the 2022 February Budget statement.

In a statement, SARS said that the fiscal space for the Minister to increase the revenue estimate proves the resilience of South Africa’s tax base and the focused performance of SARS in fulfilling its mandate. Through its administrative efficiencies, SARS said that it has, and continues to deploy a number of targeted and focused compliance efforts aimed at shaping the overall compliance landscape. This is carried out by skilled personnel, technology, artificial intelligence, and machine learning.

“The improved revenue collection has enabled the Minister to provide tax relief in excess of R20 billion to both individuals and companies to support the response to energy challenges and to account for inflation tax adjustment. For individuals, this will include tax relief in the installation of solar panels and expansion of a renewable energy tax incentive for companies. The diesel fuel relief is used to counter the adverse effect of the increase in food prices.”

SARS said that it will continue to work very hard to provide clarity and certainty to taxpayers by making it easy and seamless to transact with the organization.

“There is a real risk facing the economy, load shedding has a measurable impact on the economy that directly affects revenue collection. The intermittent electricity supply affects the overall profitability and limits the growth of big and small businesses.  However, load shedding also provides new opportunities as the government intends to bolster the use of renewable energy. As a large business to some degree shifts towards self-generation of energy, this will have positive spin-offs for SARS through possible imports. ”

Whilst many taxpayers have shown signs of moving towards the SARS strategic intent of voluntary compliance, there is still unfortunately more work that needs to be done to address those taxpayers that are still non-compliant, SARS said.

“SARS will spare no efforts in doing all in our power to carry out our revenue collection mandate in pursuit of our Higher Purpose, which is to collect all revenue that is due to enable the government to build a capable state that serves the citizens of our country and facilitate legitimate trade.”