In this bulletin:

 - What they don’t teach SARS employees anymore
 - You don’t have to chain yourself to SARS’ chair to get your refund

Dear Reader

Sandy Nienabar, an East London businesswoman, has become quite a celeb. In a desperate attempt to get her tax refund, Sandy chained herself to a chair in her local SARS office.

Normally, I’d say Sandy was being a bit melodramatic. But seeing as SARS has owed her no less than R140 000 (since 2008), I think she’s actually being very nice about the whole thing.

Luckily for Sandy, the stunt worked: she got her refund. But it’s very worrying that this is what taxpayers are resorting to, to get SARS’ attention. What next — taxpayers standing outside SARS offices en masse, with signs around their necks reading, “Still waiting for a SARS refund from 2008, can’t feed my family, please help”? Or hacking into SARS’ email systems, to bombard its employees with thousands of weird email messages every hour? This is what some colleagues threatened to do when they read of Sandy’s tactics.

What they don’t teach SARS employees anymore

Sandy Nienabar isn’t the only taxpayer to be waiting for an overdue refund. There’s also Daniel Mpasa, from the West Rand, whose R12 000 tax refund was paid to the wrong person! He alerted SARS to the error, but it was too late: the other chap had spent the refund, and would only be able to pay the cash back to Mpasa in monthly installments of R250… It was only when Mpasa took his story to the newspapers, that SARS quickly back-tracked, and gave him his refund!

I’ve received emails from subscribers, who are in the same predicament as Sandy and Daniel. And the tax consultants are very clear on what these taxpayers should do.

Firstly, remember that 31 March is SARS’ financial year-end. Secondly, SARS is R70 billion short on tax income taxes collected this year.

Both of which mean that SARS is going to be very slow to deal with refunds. The taxman’s obviously hoping you’re going to forget about the refund, so it doesn’t have to pay you out at all! What SARS is no longer teaching its employees is that taking more tax than the law requires (or not refunding money when it’s due to a taxpayer) just to get their bonuses, is theft.

You don’t have to chain yourself to SARS’ chair to get your refund

The trick is don’t let it slide. Follow up on the refund owed to you daily, or SARS will “forget” about you. And if you don't succeed, fax the SARS service monitoring office at 012 431 9695. Since it opened in October 2002, it has dealt with 1.7 million complaints about poor service at SARS.

Be prepared. Keep a copy of your tax return handy, as well as any supporting documentation that it might ask for.

Oh, and if you do have to go into the local SARS office, take a picnic basket, a thick book and a camper chair. The queues are a tad long (average wait: 4 hours).

Until next week

Fulvia Becatti

Managing Editor: Practical Tax Handbook & Practical Vat Handbook