South African Revenue Services (SARS) commissioner Edward Kieswetter has told Radio Islam there will be a revenue shortfall this financial year of about R285-billion, which is 15 to 20 percent shy of what the revenue service had expected to collect.
In a televised media briefing, Kieswetter asked taxpayers to be compliant as more than ever before as government needs tax revenue to provide much-needed relief to businesses and individuals during the COVID-19 pandemic in South Africa.
The SARS boss added that there it is an expectation that the revenue shortfall could change in the weeks and months ahead – and not for the better!
Kieswetter says the R285-billion shortfall is a stark reality that the country faces.
“We went into COVID-19 and the investment downgrade already with a troubled economy. COVID-19 did not create our crisis, it merely exacerbated it, it merely revealed the faults in our economy. We are still suffering after more than two and a half decades of democracy.”
Kieswetter says the country hasn’t addressed the special and social inequality that was inherited under apartheid.
“We are still one of the most unequal countries in the world. We have ten million people unemployed. That could go up to seventeen million people. So it is indeed an unprecedented situation we find ourselves in. We are in unchartered waters.”
Kieswetter says while the COVID-19 is invisible and invincible until a vaccine is found, every government is trying to balance the containment of the spread of the virus, to limit health & mortality outcomes with the socio and economic wellbeing of the country.
Listen to the interview with Edward Kieswetter
Faizel Patel
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