Earlier this year I wrote about undercollection by the South African Revenue Service (SARS) and the controversy over SARS refunds. This was also discussed during the presentation to Parliament mentioned here. The issue has been bubbling-along for some time – as indicated by this report from SAICA.
The information in the public domain, whether from SARS tax statistics, the SAICA report, or replies to Parliamentary questions, is only suggestive and inadequate for a thorough assessment of whether these concerns have substance or not.
As a result, I decided to follow-up with SARS and request information at the minimum level of detail I believe is required to enable this kind of analysis. I emailed Mr Randall Carolissen – Group Executive, Revenue Analysis, Planning and Reporting and, incidentally, also the Chair of Council at the University of the Witwatersrand – with the request on the 3rd of April. (See the proposed data table here: SARS_statistics_request_table).
Having received no reply, I followed-up on the 22nd of May. To date I have still received no reply. The information requested is at a sufficient level of aggregation that I can’t see any legitimate reason for not making it available. And one might have expected that SARS would be keen for independent researchers to verify their assertions that there has been nothing untoward taking place with refunds.