The incompetence that is SARS

Tax practitioner humour - not everyone's cup of tea...

This past week I had the joy of attending a tax practitioner/stakeholder meeting - what FUN! *sarcasm* (just in case some fool is UNable to read the tone). Yeah I found no joy in it (a phrase I picked up from the tax people).

So we were there from 8:00 am to about 10:20ish am (for a meeting meant to end by 10:00 am). The meeting was utterly boring (surprise surprise - I'm just not cut out for a world of tax and stuff...). There were however a few moments which allowed for a chuckle. I must admit that I do NOT find the tax practitioner jokes hilarious, but some do warrant a wee smile. And tax practitioners can be funny, when not TRYING to purposefully crack a tax joke...

However, I can't say that I really picked up much from that meeting. Other than the fact that SARS gets what they wants, they are always right, are NEVER accountable AND SARS does not have to follow the same rules as everyone else. How FUN!

Basically, YOU as a tax practitioner or tax payer are not allowed to get a little semicolon out of place. If YOU somehow manage to commit such a hideous crime, you will have to pay a hefty penalty. When YOU have to submit documentation (or whatever) to SARS, you're given normal days - such as 21 days or so (which includes Saturdays and Sundays)... If YOU do not submit these documents within the allocated time (even if SARS somehow forgot to notify you of it until the last day) YOU will have to pay a penalty. The teeny tiniest mistake could cost you hundreds of thousands of rands (we're talking possibly R 500 000, could be more).

One businessman was asked to submit tax invoices to SARS. He mistakenly put in an invoice which said "commercial invoice" instead of "tax invoice". SARS returned the documents stating they were incorrect (or something like that). Hence, this dude did not get his tax/VAT return (not sure) AND he was asked to pay a penalty of about 50% for his error (him trying to be fraudulent apparently). No one from SARS had the courtesy to maybe phone the client and let him know the problem and give him a chance to correct it. So the dude lost about 500 grand and had to pay a further 50% penalty on that amount.

SARS on the other hand... Instead of working days, SARS is given WORKING days to complete something. Which means weekends do not count. So if you submit a matter, depending on the type of matter, it could take SARS up to 90 working days to have it done (which equates to about 6 months). SARS NEVER makes any mistakes - well that's what one would think with the way they act... But, they do in fact make multiple mistakes - they just don't admit to them.

In one matter documentation was provided to SARS. The parties involved then waited the allocated time for SARS to sort out the issue, however, SARS did not get back to them. So they phoned SARS, a good few times, and kept escalating the matter. On the final call - over a year later - the guy on the other end of the line at SARS offered to escalate the matter AGAIN. He was told of the prior calls and THEN discovers that the submitted documentation was misplaced somewhere along the line at SARS. No apology given the client is told to RE-submit the documentation! All the relevant documentation (which was a lot) had to be found and gone through again and copies made (you HAVE to always have copies when submitting ANYTHING to SARS as has just been shown...). Then the client had to go all the way to SARS, wait in a queue (just to get a ticket) then wait in another queue to be seen... and eventually hand in the documents (that was already submitted over a year ago). And the client now has to wait ANOTHER 6 months to have the issue resolved!

This is just a 'sample' of the garbage we've got to put up with from SARS (and just a wee bit of what was picked up from the meeting).

Even just calling the SARS call centre is a stressful situation. IF you're lucky you might get through to an agent who's worth their salt and is really nice and sweet ans helpful. But, those are RARE - OH so rare! Sometimes you have to call through at least 3 times to get through to an agent who is actually useful!
I would love to go on about a good few horrible agents I've had to deal with, but I think I made my point (and have said more than enough). So maybe I'll leave the call centre agents for another day when they royally tick me off.

Anyhoo, SARS is mostly horrible. They screw up majorly and don't even admit it. They expect everyone to be perfect, but hey they can do as they please. Also, a LOT of their stuff is extremely questionable... Its completely unfair and aggravating.

SARS needs to employ competent workers. Follow the same rules they expect us to. And learn accountability.