Trusts Under the Microscope: 2025 Tax Season Brings Tighter Rules, Tougher Deadlines, and New Compliance Risks
The South African Revenue Service (SARS) is no longer merely modernising; it is actively tightening the net around trusts to ensure greater transparency, accuracy, and compliance. For trustees, tax practitioners, and other representatives, the 2025 season introduces more stringent obligations that cannot be overlooked.
Why South Africans Are Still Packing for New Zealand
South Africans made up 10% of the 40,000 people granted New Zealand citizenship in 2024, making them the third largest group of overseas-born nationals to become citizens. The latest census confirms that more than 95,000 South Africans now call New Zealand home, up from 71,382 in 2018.
The Silent Strain: How Bracket Creep and a Flat Tax Table are Impacting South Africans
As South Africa makes its way through another challenging tax year, a subtle but serious financial pressure is beginning to affect more employees across the income spectrum. For the third consecutive year, the South African Revenue Service (SARS) did not adjust the individual income tax tables in line with inflation, a decision with far-reaching implications for both employers and employees.
Voluntary Disclosure Relief for Customs and Excise: A New Avenue to Come Clean
For years, South Africa’s voluntary disclosure programme (VDP) has allowed taxpayers to correct past defaults on Income Tax, Value-Added Tax (VAT), Pay-As-You-Earn (PAYE), and other mainstream taxes under the Tax Administration Act, No. 28 of 2011 (TAA). Often some of the riskiest and most heavily penalised areas of non-compliance, being Customs and Excise, were left outside the framework. That gap is finally closing.
Suspensions of Payment Under the 2025 Tax Administration Laws Amendment Bill: A Narrow Escape from SARS’ Collection Machine
As the 2025 filing season unfolds, taxpayers should be reminded that when the South African Revenue Service (SARS) issues an estimated assessment, often because a taxpayer has not filed a return or failed to provide information on time, the debt is immediately due and payable.