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Pretoria - Almost 100 value-added-tax merchants have been investigated for fraud since the South African Revenue Service (Sars) VAT deregistration process started.
This comes in the wake of the revenue office initiating an audit of companies that were tracked and identified for deregistration.
Total registrations for VAT have dramatically declined since January this year, when the first stage of the deregistration process started.
Charles de Wet, a VAT specialist at PricewaterhouseCoopers, says the economic downturn has resulted in many companies being liquidated or shrinking to below the level for compulsory VAT registration.
The registrations of almost 30 000 VAT merchants who have submitted nil returns for the past 12 months have been suspended.
Another 20 665 registrations were cancelled because the merchants had not achieved the R20 000 for taxable returns over 12 months.
According to Sars only 4 000 had re-activated their registrations.
The revenue office announced on Tuesday that it was starting the second round of removing traders that did not belong on its VAT register.
According to Sars spokesperson Malerato Sekha, on Monday letters had been sent to dealers, informing them of their deregistration.
The letters state that the registrations have been suspended "with immediate effect". Those dealers wishing to remain registered have to validate their registration again.
This means that they will need to visit a Sars office in person.
Sars requires proof of the identity of the representative or owner of the company, banking details and proof of the company's physical address.
It was previously reported by Sars that it was taking steps to obtain biometric information tools, such as finger-printing.
VAT dealers can voluntarily register for VAT, but then they have to produce at least R20 000 worth of taxable products over 12 months.
In March next year the cut-off will increase to R50 000, and those that still do not reach the R20 000 level will also fall away.
- Sake24.com
For more business news in Afrikaans, go to Sake24.com.