Pretoria - Taxpayers wanting to make use of the voluntary disclosure programme to put to rights their murky tax history will fall between two stools in this year's filing campaign.
Any transgression committed this year will not come into consideration for the relief Minister of Finance Pravin Gordhan announced in his February budget.
This means that taxpayers who wait until November 1 or later and have not met their 2010 obligations will again be in hot water.
The disclosure programme (which is not being called an amnesty) targets all taxpayers - companies, close corporations, trusts and individuals. It affects all possible tax defaults, whether for the current payment system, VAT, secondary tax on companies, company tax or personal income tax.
A spokesperson for the South African Revenue Service (Sars) said it was understandable that people were hesitant to come forward and possibly expose themselves to an audit before the programme comes into operation on November 1.
He said it was necessary to weigh up reluctance, where previous contraventions might be implicated, against deliberate abuse of the opportunity.
All contraventions that took place 12 months before Gordhan's announcement would come into consideration, but none after that date.
There were apparently taxpayers who had been ready to submit their overdue returns when the minister announced the programme.
Now taxpayers wanted to hold them back to avoid the fines and interest for previous years' defaults or non-submission.
It was human nature, Sake24 was told, to want to insinuate oneself into the space created by the programme, but it would be difficult to keep the door open so that people could wait until November 1.
On a strict interpretation of the law, one of the two "stools" would prove the wrong one. The programme also makes provision for anonymous enquiries from taxpayers who want to find out if they qualify for a reprieve.
Tax practitioners and intermediaries are concerned that they will be obliged to report their clients if they do not qualify.
The spokesperson said Sars was aware of these concerns and was having discussions with the Financial Intelligence Centre on a possible mechanism to prevent the "messengers" being shot.
Sars said it appreciated the fact that more information was needed on the programme, but had to go through the parliamentary process first before it could embark on an aggressive communication campaign.
Dr Beric Croome, tax director at Edward Nathan Sonnenbergs, previously said that people who had not made use of the 2003 exchange control and tax amnesty would be silly not to avail themselves of the new opportunity.
- Sake24.com