SARS follows Panama paper trail

26 May 2016 - 02:00 By ©BDlive

The SA Revenue Service has identified 1,700 South Africans in the data released in the Panama Papers. They ranged from shareholders and directors to beneficiaries, SARS group executive for product oversight, legal and policy, Vlok Springton, said yesterday at a joint meeting of three parliamentary committees to discuss the papers.SARS is now matching the identities of these individuals with its database and testing the Panama Papers data against the income tax declarations of the listed residents.Springton said it was too early to predict the level of tax avoidance, adding that the Panama data were "a useful starting point for further inquiry but would require substantial follow-up work".Reserve Bank head of financial surveillance Elijah Mazibuko said that, from January 2015 to now, 77 investigations had been launched and about 145 bank accounts had been frozen because the flow of finances through them was suspicious...

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