Was SARS right to publicly disclosed details of Lucky Montana’s R55 million tax debt?

In a rare move, the South African Revenue Service (SARS) held a weekend media briefing where it publicly disclosed detailed taxpayer information about Lucky Montana and his R55 million debt.

The revenue service never discloses taxpayer details, often citing “confidential information” as the reason.

But the former Prasa CEO, who is now uMkhonto Wesizwe (MK) Party MP held a press conference of his own on Monday, fighting back against SARS' claims.

Montana has threatened to sue SARS and the commissioner, Edward Kieswetter for R50 million for making his tax affairs public.

SARS claims Montana publicly lied about its dispute with him, allowing it to make puclic some aspects of his tax.

The revenue service says it was necessary to protect the integrity of the tax system amid the former PRASA CEO's public claims.

Montana has in the past been found to have lied about a massive locomotive deal, that saw Prasa spending billions of rand on locomotives that were too tall for South Africa's rail network.

Speaking to Stephen Grootes on The Money Show, Charles De Wet, Executive at ENS in the Tax practice says Montana doesn't have a case.

"If you look at the record that SARS published on Saturday, there's a lot of information there. It seems due process has been followed from the word go...I cannot believe there is any prospect of sucess in terms of suing the commissioner for doing there job," says De Wet.

"If you look at the process that they followed, it's obvious that they did an analysis of his bank account and looked at the receipts that came into bank account and compared that to his tax returns," added De Wet.

Listen to the interview in the audio player below.