Will to ramp up revenue collection efforts in current constrained economic environment there - Kieswetter

The jury is still out on whether bolstering the revenue service will have the desired effect of collecting more money, but the signs are there that the additional R4 billion allocated in the 2025 budget will have been a worthy investment. 

The South African Revenue Service (SARS) is hoping to rake in as much as R50 billion more in tax collection to stave off another battle over whether taxes should be increased to close the projected budget deficit in 2026.

FULL SPEECH | 2025 Medium-term budget policy statement

SARS Commissioner Edward Kieswetter said that while revenue collection remains hard in a constrained economic environment, the will is there to ramp up efforts to collect more revenue.

While collections in the corporate and dividend tax sector have contributed strongly to the higher-than-estimated tax revenue of R19.7 billion, personal income tax collections were below expectations.

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SARS data for the first half of the year indicates that debt collections remain below estimates. 

But Kieswetter said that all indications were that this would pick up. 

"Our latest estimate, if we add in October, we are now standing at about R57 billion. So we see October is higher than the average six months before that, and we expect that will grow."

However, Kieswetter said the legal and technical complexity of settling many cases was slowing down the collection rate but the additional skills were being acquired to take the necessary legal steps to secure the outstanding debt.

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