The South African Revenue Service (SARS) has collected R1,250 trillion in tax revenue in the 2020-2021 financial year “which exceeds the February estimate by R38 billion”, SARS Commissioner Edward Kieswetter explained.
SARS has collected a preliminary amount of R1, 250 trillion for the period ending 31 March 2021#SARSRevenueAnnouncement
— SA Revenue Service (@sarstax) April 1, 2021
Despite the economy being hard hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, the revenue service reportedly worked hard in their tax collection efforts “to maintain fiscal capability and sovereignty”, as SABC News reports.
“Stated otherwise, we have reduced the October revenue estimate of under-recovery from R312,8 billion… to R175,2 billion.
“This means that SARS reports an additional R138 billion as a result of the slightly improved economy and the focus on compliance efforts for the year.
“Within the context of the economic contraction, the revenue reported year-on-year is down 7.8 percent, but represents an improvement of 3.1 percent against the revised February estimate, and 12.3 percent improvement” against the October medium-term budget estimate set by the minister, Kieswetter adds.
Kieswetter further mentioned that the main drivers of the positive revenue reported was the impact of renewed tax administrative efforts to improve taxpayer compliance, even though low compliance behaviour remains a concern which requires more focus, IOL adds.
He outlined that “Personal income taxes are up 4.2 billion or 488.6 billion collected, which is a 0.9 percent improvement from the February estimate” while “Value-added tax is up by 6.1 billion, collecting 330.7 billion or 1.9 percent up from the February estimate”.
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Picture: Supplied