‘ŽŽ‡…–• ‘”‡ –Šƒ
JOHANNESBURG - The South African Revenue Service (SARS) collected just over R2 trillion in gross tax revenues over the past year, a 9.7 per cent increase from the 2021/22 tax year. The gross revenues were R123 billion, above what the Finance minister estimated in the 2022 budget speech.
This was the first time that SARS exceeded the R2 trillion gross tax revenue mark. But it was R5 billion below SARS’s own revised estimate.
“Basically, for all intents and purposes, we have achieved what the (Finance) minister set us out to achieve,” said SARS Commissioner Edward Kieswetter. Total tax refunds surged by almost 19 per cent to more than R381 billion, with value-added tax (VAT) refunds increasing by almost 22 per cent to R319 billion.
Refunds
SARS said the refunds were primarily driven by capital investments by companies. SARS Chief Revenue Officer Johnstone Makhubu said that while zero-rated exports largely drove the refunds, SARS saw a significant increase in capital investment imports.
The Head of the large business unit in SARS, Narcizio Makwakwa, said
PRETORIA – Opposition party, the African Transformation Movement (ATM) has written to President Cyril Ramaphosa, urging him to resuscitate South Africa’s (SA) bid to withdraw from the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) before the 15th BRICS summit scheduled for Durban in August.
Controversy has mired the upcoming the BRICS summit, after the ICC issued a warrant of arrest for Russian President Vladimir Putin, accusing him of committing war crimes in the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war. The letter to Ramaphosa, written by ATM leader Vuyo Zungula, seen by IOL, is also addressed to Justice and Correctional Services Minister Ronald Lamola, and International Relations Minister Dr Naledi Pandor.
Technicality
Zungula highlighted SA’s previous bid to withdraw from the ICC, which was thwarted on a technicality by the High Court in Pretoria in February 2017, and urges the government to follow correct procedure this time, and dump the Rome Statute of the ICC. “It is common cause that the North Gauteng High Court of the Republic of South Africa has on February 22, 2017, issued a judgment in the matter between the Democratic
Alliance and the Minister of International Relations and Cooperation and others and found that the approval of the Parliament of South Africa had to be obtained before the instrument of withdrawal from the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court can be deposited with the United Nations as provided for In Article 127(1) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court,” Zungula wrote.
Consequently, the Superior Court ruled in favour of the DA, finding that, at the time, the government’s submission of an instrument of withdrawal from the ICC was ‘unconstitutional and invalid’.