The taxman is coming for your money
Earlier this year, the taxman identified over 850,000 outstanding tax returns, which it is now chasing – sometimes with disastrous consequences for the average person.
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As the South African Revenue Service goes on the hunt for billions in uncollected tax, unsuspecting citizens are falling victim to a debt-collection blitz when they owe no money.
Earlier this year, the taxman identified over 850,000 outstanding tax returns, which it is now chasing – sometimes with disastrous consequences for the average person.
Across social media, people are complaining that they are receiving letters demanding money, having cash simply taken out of their accounts, and just plain battling to get any help when they fall mercy to faceless systems.
The Office of the Tax Ombud’s latest annual report – for 2024/25 – indicates that it received 4,847 complaints in that year. The value of top ten refunds paid to taxpayers across all categories was R168 million.
On a /PersonalFinanceZA thread on Reddit, one person said that they received a 'final letter of demand' for “a SARS debt that I didn't know existed and have received no non-final letters of demand for”.
The user, jenethyn adds that they feel this is “needlessly hostile but whatever. Indeed the letter is in my SARS correspondence on efiling so not a scam, turns out I got a penalty for paying my provisional tax due at end August on Saturday 30 August”.
However, even after finding out that having paid money at the end of August that the user said was due at the end of August, they could find no “way on earth to pay this. My statement of account shows a zero balance, there is no link or button on efiling to pay from the final letter of demand, and no account document anywhere that I can get a valid payment reference from to do an EFT or set up my own efiling payment.”
Another user had to deal with three different amounts due, which were provided by three different SARS sources.
Then there was this post: "My 20-year-old sister is a student. She has never had a job. SARS just sent her a final demand for R3,000. How can she owe tax on R0 income?"
The taxman did not respond to numerous requests for comment from IOL; however, it has stated that it is owed R523 billion.
In a blog, Junaid Bhayla team lead of Tax Debts at Tax Consulting writes that “an undisputed debt book of this scale reflects more than isolated non-compliance. It points to a systemic problem where collection has historically lagged behind assessment”.
The most pronounced movement in the December 2025 data is the sharp increase in personal income tax debt from November (R88.3 billion) to December (R115.5 billion), a roughly R27.2 billion jump. While year-end fluctuations are not unusual, the magnitude of this increase is difficult to ignore, wrote Bhayla.
“SARS spent their festive period reconciling individual taxpayer accounts, matched third-party data and are preparing for collection. The groundwork has been laid, and stronger collection activity is expected to follow,” Bhayla added.
SARS, in a recent press release, also said it has issued final demands to trusts who did not submit an annual tax return for the 2024 and 2025 years of assessment.
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