Latest Court Judgements
ITC25209
What is impermissible new grounds for SARS at litigation phase.
VAT22558
Input tax claims and taxable supplies in the insurance space.
VAT22285 and IT45931
The extent to which SARS must discover documents during the tax court litigation process.
JBSA Props (Pty) Ltd and Another v CSARS and Others (5009/2023P)
The effect of business rescue on tax debts arising post business rescue commencement and pre-business rescue plan adoption.
In a judgment handed down by the High Court in December 2024[1], the court had to decide an application brought by a taxpayer to effectively force SARS pay out a refund which had not been assessed.
This article questions the benefits of VDP and whether there are other (perhaps even more beneficial) ways of fixing old tax mistakes.
youTube Channel
Check out the Unicus Tax YouTube channel for deep dives into important technical tax issues over the last couple of weeks.
Here Nico discusses a proposed change to the understatement penalty regime – it seems SARS is planning on making it easier for themselves to impose understatement penalties. Given that these penalties can go as high as 200%, it is important that taxpayers understand this proposed change.
What's New with us
Congratulations to Mr Xaba for Winning our TikTok Lucky Draw
We are very excited to be expanding to Cape Town
Meet Luna
Meet Luna, Unicus Tax's first AI bot.
She can answer basic tax-related questions about our speciality areas: the Voluntary Disclosure Program Applications and Tax Dispute Resolution.
In March we learned again that SARS’ system appears not to take into account dies non, which resulted:
- in taxpayers’ suspension of payment applications being declined incorrectly,
- incorrect objection due dates being placed on SARS’ finalisation letters; and
- SARS first sending objections for condonation consideration when the thing is not late.
My office probably served more section 11(4) notices in March 2025 than we did the whole of 2024. Sad that we have to threaten with legal action to keep SARS to the law.
Hear more what Nico has to say on his various social media platforms
here:
New from SARS
SARS media release dated 27 April 2025:
27 April 2025 – The Commissioner for the South African Revenue Service (SARS), Mr Edward Kieswetter, welcomes the agreement between the parties and court order in the matter relating to the 0.5 percentage point increase in value-added tax (VAT) that was originally announced to come into effect on 1 May 2025, along with other matters.
This is an important order that provides clarity to SARS to effectively and efficiently administer the VAT Act. It also has practical implication for consumers and VAT vendors charged with managing VAT. These are:
- The court’s order suspends the 0.5 percentage point increase that was originally announced to come into effect on 1 May 2015 and there is, therefore, no basis for VAT vendors to implement an increase of VAT rate.
- All vendors are urged to readjust their systems back to 15%.
- All consumers are urged to ensure that they are charged the correct VAT rate of 15%. In the unlikely event they are charged 15.5%, consumers should bring this to the attention of the vendor and ensure that this is resolved at the point of sale or otherwise by mutual agreement.
For further information, please contact [email protected].
What’s New at SARS
VAT apportionment methodology for municipalities (https://www.sars.gov.za/wp-content/uploads/Legal/Rulings/BGR/Legal-IntR-R-BGR-04-Apportionment-Methodology-to-be-applied-by-a-Municipality.pdf)
