Home
/
Resources
/
Tax
/
Legal and Policy
/
2025 Legal and Policy

Legal and Policy - 9 October 2025

Description

SARS

  • 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

  • 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.

  • 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 – Value-Added Tax Act, 1991(Archive)

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

  • 6 October 2025 – Value-Added Tax Act, 1991

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

  • 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 – 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 SARSMedia@sars.gov.za.

  • 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.

  • 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

NATIONAL TREASURY

ATAF

SAFLII

OTO


AuthorLegal and Policy
DivisionTax
Categories
Legal and Policy
Date9 October 2025