The Democratic Alliance (DA) has urged the Standing Committee on Finance to investigate the role of SA Revenue Services (SARS) in VAT refunds.
It says they will request the Parliamentary legal services to provide the Committee with an opinion on possible limitations to the disclosure limitations as contained in Chapter 6 of the Tax Administration Act.
The DA’s Alf Lees says this follows reports that SARS has paid out R100 million in fraudulent VAT refunds to people or entities linked to the controversial Gupta-family.
“VAT refunds were being delayed. Apparently, deliberately as was found by the Tax Ombuds and putting small businesses at risk and putting jobs at risk. These kind of fraudulent VAT refunds were being paid out so there need to be a full disclosure of how this happened and what has been done about it.”
