10 October 2025 – The Limpopo mobile tax unit schedules for October and November 2025 are now available.

10 October 2025 – This issue provides an overview of proposed amendments arising from the national budget, a notable Supreme Court of Appeal decision involving Woolworths Holdings and the South African Revenue Service (SARS), the regulations on exporting second-hand goods, taxpayers’ rights regarding SARS-approved apportionment methods, and the determination of liability dates for Value-Added Tax (VAT) collection.

10 October 2025 – Customs and Excise Act, 1964: Draft amendments to forms for Comment:

• DA 159 – Petroleum Products: Account for Special Storage Warehouse
• DA 160 – Petroleum Products: Account for Manufacturing Warehouse

Due date for comment: 23 October 2025

9 October 2025 – The latest scam is an email with the subject line ‘Settlement Notification – Action Required by 13 October 2025’. It continues to say ‘Settlement is due on or before 13 October 2025. Failure to settle this amount by the due date may result in legal actions.’ People are prompted to click on a PDF attachment with fraudulent bank details. Please don’t click on any suspect links, attachments or pay money into bank accounts. See here how payments to SARS are handled.

If in doubt, always see the scam alerts published on the Scams & Phishing webpage or email the SARS Anti-phishing team on [email protected].

Preview of this scam:

8 October 2025 – Promotion of Access to Information Act, 2000, and Protection of Personal Information Act, 2013

The following changes were made to the Promotion of Access to Information Act, 2000 (PAIA) page:

• Updated to, amongst others, include the Protection of Personal Information Act, 2013

• Publication of Issue 8 of the Manual on the Promotion of Access to Information Act, 2000, and Protection of Personal Information Act, 2013

8 October 2025 – The e@syFile™ Employer version 8.0.1_325 release notes specify the following changes:

• Correction made for users experiencing ‘Packet loss’ popup during submission.
• Correction made for users experiencing ‘An error occurred’ pop-up when requesting pre-pop data.
• Enhancements made to AA88 processing.
• Enhancement made to large import files, resulting in a time-out pop-up.
• Correction made to restrict the option to only generate all PDF certificates for the 02 Reconciliation.

See more detail in the release notes.

7 October 2025 – The South African Revenue Service (SARS) has noted media reports by Independent Newspapers today wherein it is alleged that Mr Lucky Montana MP has “charged” and “laid criminal charges” against SARS for supposedly “fraudulently doctoring a fake court judgment to justify a hefty tax bill”. Mr Montana further allegedly made public claims against SARS of “maladministration, abuse of power and a politically motivated witch hunt”.

Whereas ordinarily, SARS does not engage publicly with taxpayers that are engaged in dispute processes, the false claims must be addressed immediately. In this respect, it is absolutely essential to provide a background to this matter.

The process of debt collection in general:

The Tax Administration Act imposes on SARS the statutory obligation to ensure the efficient and effective collection of tax. This process may include the filing of a certified statement by SARS, setting out the amount of tax payable to the clerk or registrar of a competent court, where applicable in certain circumstances. In such a case, a warrant of execution is then issued – to be executed in the ordinary course of debt collection. This certified statement, lawfully given in favour of SARS, is then utilised to recover the taxpayer’s tax debt. It is settled law that such a certified statement obtained by SARS from a court with competent jurisdiction over the taxpayer is treated as a civil judgment for purposes of recovery of a tax debt. SARS emphatically denies using “fraudulently doctored court judgments to justify hefty tax bills”.

Case selection in general:

SARS is a state institution and subject to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. SARS seeks to apply the tax and customs laws it administers with fairness, in a transparent and even-handed manner without any external influence. No single person in SARS can decide who to investigate, who to audit, who to settle tax debts with and who not to. SARS relies on a variety of automated, Artificial Intelligence (AI), risk-based, data-based and research formulated case selection mechanisms. Case selection for investigation or audit is subject to oversight from various mechanisms – committees with governance rules exist to consider and execute certain activities. All these committees exist by statute, policy or governance mechanism and have very clear rules. They comprise of persons with the requisite knowledge and expertise and are themselves subject to oversight mechanisms. SARS is a semi-autonomous public institution with specific statutory obligations. SARS has consistently conducted its work independently and in a non-partisan manner that does not allow for external interference. SARS emphatically denies any “politically motivated witch hunts”.

The modus operandi of false claims to obfuscate, delay, distract, counter, and create uncalled for drama:

It has become commonplace among some who have to face the consequences of their own actions, to try to obfuscate, distract, attack and use delay tactics by abusing formal complaints, oversight and investigative mechanisms and processes, and by lodging false allegations and fake and unsubstantiated “complaints”. Our recent history is littered with examples of how persons have sought to infiltrate and manipulate the media and other public platforms to advance false claims and narratives to achieve all sorts of questionable outcomes. The same goes for abusing and subverting law enforcement agency resources solely to achieve sensationalist headlines. In this regard, SARS has been and will continue to engage with the various Criminal Justice System agencies with a view to examine how best this practice can be curbed, as it is also wasting time and precious resources of law enforcement officials.

SARS urges the media to conduct meaningful fact-checking and to ensure that they’re familiar with legal and standard administrative processes and procedures before reporting on mere claims. SARS, and the media and in fact all citizens of this country owe it to all honest, diligent, and hardworking civil servants to first determine the motive of the claim, be critical of wild claims and at the very least establish facts, before advancing one-sided claims. This does not preclude anyone from seeking any remedy permitted in law from law enforcement agencies, if there is a case to be had. In this case, there is none.

“Charging” and “laying charges”:

The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) is established by Section 179 of the Constitution and is the sole institution empowered to decide to criminally charge any person, institution, or legal entity and to determine what those charges may be. Nobody other than the NPA can charge SARS or any of its officials.

SARS is allowed to disclose taxpayer information publicly to disprove false allegations:

Considering the claims by Mr Montana, SARS will to the extent necessary, invoke Section 67(5) of the Tax Administration Act, which allows SARS to disclose taxpayer information that would otherwise be treated as confidential, in order to disprove the false allegation made against SARS and its processes.

SARS will make no further public comment in this regard for now, until Mr Montana has been notified in terms of section 67 (5) of the Tax Administration Act to withdraw publicly these false, scandalous and vexatious claims within the necessary time period of 24 hours. Failure to act, SARS will be compelled to disclose the otherwise confidential taxpayer information to correct the misperception.

SARS further encourages taxpayers in dispute with SARS to make use of ongoing and existing dispute platforms to air any grievances they may have.

For further information, please contact [email protected].

7 October 2025 – SARS is proud to announce the expansion of the Lwazi Artificial Intelligence (AI) Assistant across the SARS website and SARS MobiApp platforms. The upgraded Lwazi AI Assistant provides instant support with tax reference numbers, statements of account, notices of assessment, and the status of your audit or refund—anytime, anywhere.

Lwazi AI is designed with accessibility at its core, ensuring that tax support is easier for everyone, including users who are visually impaired. Welcome to a new era of smart, secure, and user-friendly tax services with SARS. Try Lwazi AI Assistant today—save time, skip the queues, and get the answers you need instantly!

7 October 2025 – Watch our new step-by-step video to see what you can do on our online query system – Tired of long lines at the branch? Discover the SARS Online Query System (SOQS).

6 October 2025 – Value-Added Tax Act, 1991

• Binding General Ruling 4 (Issue 5) – Apportionment methodology to be applied by a municipality

6 October 2025 – Value-Added Tax Act, 1991

• Binding General Rulings 4 (Issue 4) – Apportionment methodology to be applied by a municipality

6 October 2025 – The state provides state warehouses for the safekeeping of goods. These are managed by Customs. The purpose of this list of unentered goods is to notify the importer, exporter and any other person that has interest in the goods that the goods have been taken up into the State warehouse and if they remain unentered they will be disposed in accordance with the provisions of the Customs & Excise Act.

See the latest Customs Weekly List of Unentered Goods here.

6 October 2025 – To improve the security and clarity of our email correspondence, SARS has introduced enhanced encryption and identification measures, effective 3 October 2025. These changes apply to emails containing PDF attachments, such as the Notice of Registration (IT150) and Statement of Account (SOA) in respect of Personal Income Tax (PIT).

Key Enhancements

• The PDF file names will partially mask the Tax Reference Number.
• The body of the email will include the taxpayer’s initial/s and surname.
• The Statement of Account PDF attachment will now be password-protected.

These enhancements support SARS’s commitment to data privacy in line with POPIA and help taxpayer representatives and tax practitioners identify correspondence more easily.

3 October 2025 – Customs and Excise Act, 1964: Publication details for tariffs amendments notices R6709, R6710, and R6711, as published in Government Gazette 53461 of 3 October 2025, are now available.

3 October 2025 – Achieving our Vision of a smart, modern SARS with unquestionable integrity that is trusted and admired is of paramount importance. Pivotal to the delivery of our vision are our digital platforms and technology infrastructure. To provide clarity and certainty, make it easy for taxpayers and traders to comply with their obligations and building public trust and confidence, our technology assets must demonstrate the highest levels of availability, robustness and security.

In accordance with our Vision and Strategic Objectives, which include modernising our systems to provide Digital and Streamlined online services, we are hard at work ensuring that our digital platforms and technology infrastructure are available, robust and secure, by performing regular upgrades, enhancements and maintenance.

Considering the above, SARS Digital platform maintenance is scheduled for:

• Friday, 3 October 2025 from 18:00 to 23:00.
• Saturday, 4 October from 8:00 to Sunday, 5 October at 1:30

During this time, you may experience intermittent service interruption on our eFiling, Tax and Customs Digital Platforms, as well as delays in receiving email OTPs.

2 October 2025 – The schedule for the Circus Triangle Mall Pop-up Branches for October 2025 in Mthatha is now available.

2 October 2025 – Customs and Excise Act, 1964: The tariffs amendments notices, scheduled for publication in the Government Gazette, relate to the following amendments, with effect from 1 January 2026:

• Part 1 of Schedule No. 1, by the substitution of various tariff subheadings, to implement the phase down rates of customs duties in terms of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Agreement
• Part 1 of Schedule No. 1, to provide for technical amendments, by the insertion of new 8-digit tariff subheadings under Chapters 29, 38, 68, 70, 74 and 83
• Schedule No. 2, by the substitution of the heading to include the reference to “Safeguard”

Publication details will be made available later

2 October 2025 – The East London mobile tax unit schedule for October to November 2025 is now available.

1 October 2025 — The South African Revenue Service (SARS) notes the publication of the Office of the Tax Ombudsman’s (OTO) draft report, for public comment, on cases of eFiling profile compromise.

While SARS notes the OTO’s recommendations, the organisation would like to assure taxpayers that most of these have been integral to the modernisation programme over a number of years. SARS remains committed to strengthening the critical areas that have been highlighted. These include enhancing its authentication protocols; improving fraud-risk detection; optimising refund-verification systems; and strengthening collaboration with banks, the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC), and South African Police Service (SAPS).

SARS believes that OTO plays a crucial role in the tax ecosystem and safeguarding and promoting tax and fiscal system for the country. Promotion of cooperation between these vital institutions, SARS and OTO, is critical for the functioning of the tax system. In this regard, SARS will be making inputs into the draft report like all other interested parties. Additionally, SARS believes its constructive contribution will help to continue to deepen confidence to all taxpayers that its electronic platforms are secure and safe for engagement with the organisation.

SARS acknowledges that cybercrime is an evolving and growing risk, requiring significant and ongoing investment into modernisation of its tax administration platform as included in its current 5-year strategic plan. Many of the recommendations in the OTO report have already begun and will be continually reviewed and enhanced as the goal posts shift. These are intended to strengthen our security layer, and this was occasioned by our concerns about the evolving nature of cybercrime. As an organisation that is operating in a rapidly changing technologically environment, SARS continuously reviews strategic risks, so that it can react to these changes and stay ahead of the curve. SARS will be sharing these insights with the OTO.

SARS believes that any compromised profile is one too many. All role players must play their part to prevent criminals from accessing taxpayers’ information. It is worth repeating that taxpayers must keep their confidential details safe and never exposed to unauthorised individuals. Taxpayers must use secure internet platforms to access electronic services such as eFiling. SARS will never ask taxpayers to click any link to access its services.

For further information, please contact [email protected].

30 September 2025 – The South African Revenue Service (SARS) is always ready to assist taxpayers to fulfil their legal obligations. Taxpayers who owe tax debt may often find it difficult to settle their debt due to financial challenges. SARS has various mechanisms to collect outstanding debt. To explore this matter further, SARS met with the Recognised Controlling Bodies (RCBs) to look at various ways in which taxpayers can be assisted to pay their debts to the fiscus.

At this meeting, the parties discussed the Debt Compromise provision as provided for in Part D of the Tax Administration Act, which may be considered under certain circumstances. We agreed with RCBs to launch an Expedited Tax Debt Process. This is part of a general alignment and commitment between SARS and the RCBs to find ways to recover debt rapidly within the provisions of the Tax Administration Act. The normal debt-compromise process remains open to all taxpayers.

SARS will apply the learnings of the rapid compromise process to enhance the compromise process to benefit all taxpayers. A dedicated single point of entry will be made available for applications from Monday, 13 October 2025. Although this tax-debt compromise process will start with RCBs, depending on the results, SARS may later consider it for all taxpayers.

SARS will communicate this expedited debt compromise process widely, and invite RCBs to collaborate on such awareness sessions, webinars, and targeted communication to facilitate widespread understanding of the process.

Key Features of the Initiative 

a. Expedited compromise process applies to non-disputed tax debts older than 12 months.

b. Exclusion of entities subject to specific legal processes (such as liquidations, estates, and business rescue cases), companies that have been deregistered, cases subject to criminal investigation and audit, as well as cases within the write-off process.

c. All applicants must provide comprehensive relevant supporting documentation with their submissions. It is important that disclosures are accurate, failing which SARS may not even consider such applications.

d. Tax practitioners registered with the RCBs can guide taxpayer clients on the requirements for the debt compromise, including supporting documents required in line with Part D of Chapter 14 of the Tax Administration Act.

e. SARS commits to resolve qualifying applications within four weeks, using dedicated teams and enhanced workflow management.

f. For taxpayers who remain non-compliant and those not forming part of the compromise process, SARS will revert to normal enforcement actions against non-compliant taxpayers. To make non-compliance hard and costly, such enforcement will include writs of execution of court judgments.

Operational and Technical Enhancements

Dedicated account teams and technical resources, including online appointment systems for tax practitioners, have been activated to support the process and resolve operational challenges.

Follow-Up Actions SARS and RCBs

In line with the discussions held with SARS, RCBs will clarify the requirements for the expedited compromise process and enable its smooth operation.

For further information, please contact [email protected].