Tom Moyane, the Commissioner for the South African Revenue Service (Sars), on Thursday committed the revenue authority to achieving an increased revenue target for the 2017/18 financial year.
This comes after finance minister Malusi Gigaba on Wednesday increased the anticipated revenue that has to be collected for the South African fiscus by end of March, from R1,214.7 billion to R1,217.3 billion.
This is a marginal increase of R2.6 billion and stems from improved company and trade taxes collected since the last quarter of 2017. Sars has a R48.2 billion revenue shortfall this financial year, revised down from R50.2 billion, and Gigaba raised some taxes to generated an additional R36 billion for the fiscus.
Moyane said the revenue authority was committed to maximising revenue collection for government’s development agenda, despite the lacklustre economy.
He said that the fiscal stability of the country was ultimately dependent on the ability of Sars to collect all revenue due to the fiscus.
“South Africa’s sovereign debt levels have increased to 53.3 percent of GDP. The cost of servicing this large debt of R163.2 billion, one of the fastest growing line items on the government expenditure framework, is stripping away revenue from much needed social imperatives faced by our nation,” Moyane said.
“We have put in place the necessary regional revenue management structures to track taxpayer compliance down to granular level and the results are proving to be positive. We are working much smarter with greater intensity to close any revenue gaps and leakages.”
Moyane said that South Africa depends on the 14,000 Sars officials who have consistently delivered on very tough revenue estimates every year. (via African News Agency)
