I have it on VERY good authority that SARS is a complete mess at the moment. And it's operations are on a downward trajectory. Bad management, political interference, etc etc etc. There's some pretty sordid stuff going on (not going to say anything more than that, but the incident with Vlok Symington, one of the good guys at SARS, recently being held against his will in an office at SARS by some of the Commissioner's heavies is just one example that's in the public domain). Our economy isn't growing (so tax payments are flat), but the government's need for cash is. So SARS has to squeeze every cent out of us. All of the good people at SARS are leaving in their droves, and SARS is employing goons who are just debt collectors with no knowledge of tax principles. Their auditors (who should have a basic grasp of said principles) simply don't know what they're doing (I have first hand experience of this). Case in point: the Commissioner himself (who came from - wait for it - the Department of Correctional Services). The biggest problem for me in all of this is that they're going after the wrong people - people who are employees and have PAYE deducted from their salaries every month and provisional taxpayers who make all their payments on time. They should be going after those that aren't registered and are self employed, who run cash businesses. The Porsche garage in Fourways apparently sells more than 100 cars a month. It's the biggest Porsche dealership in the Southern Hemisphere. These goons at SARS chasing compliant taxpayers and withholding small refunds under the guise of verifying bank details would use their time far more productively if they just set up a desk outside Porsche and did lifestyle audits on its customers going in and coming out.
