The South African Revenue Service (SARS) on Tuesday said over 2‚000 taxpayers had taken up the Special Voluntary Disclosure Programme announced in the Budget Speech in 2016 by the then Finance Minister‚ Pravin Gordhan‚ to give non-compliant taxpayers the opportunity to voluntary disclose offshore assets and income.
The SVDP programme offered non-compliant taxpayers a once-off opportunity during a limited window period running from 1 October 2016 to 31 August 2017 to regularise their unauthorised foreign assets and income by voluntary disclosing tax and exchange control defaults specifically in relation to offshore assets.
A total of 2‚018 applications have been tallied‚ SARS said in a statement. Of this figure‚ 335 applications have been processed‚ yielding R1 billion in revenue.
"This collected revenue‚ thus far provides a boost to SARS’ revenue purse in a difficult economic period and will assist the country in its socio-economic development to take South Africa forward.
"While it was not not possible to anticipate the number of applications beforehand‚ as was demonstrated in the 2016 Budget Review‚ SARS is quite satisfied with the response by South African taxpayers and traders to take advantage of the SVDP."
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