BUSINESS NEWS - Taxpayers who want to do battle with the South African Revenue Service (Sars) must “exhaust” all its internal complaint mechanisms before they can approach any other body for help in their fight.
All too often taxpayers see the Office of the Tax Ombud (OTO) as their first port of call when wanting quick solutions to their issues with Sars, mainly in an effort to save time and money.
The rejection of a recent complaint by the Tax Ombud highlights the fact that the taxpayer should first exhaust all the Sars processes. In this case the taxpayer’s representative approached the Ombud’s office when Sars failed to issue a document requested by the taxpayer.
The Tax Ombud found he did not exhaust all his options, and also rejected his appeal.
Daniel van Tonder, head of taxation at FinSolve Accounting and Taxation, says there is no “fixed tick-list” that shows when all the mechanisms have been exhausted.
Failing the taxpayer
“Exhausted is a relative term.” It is when taxpayers feel that the system has failed them, says Van Tonder. They cannot go back and they cannot go forward.
“Only when you find yourself between a rock and a hard place can you approach the Tax Ombud,” he said during a South African Institute of Taxation (Sait) webinar on escalating cases to the OTO.
Van Tonder says it is quite a daunting process to engage in a dispute or an objection process with Sars and most people would rather approach the Tax Ombud for a quick solution.
