and then we received a letter threatening us with being handed over for amounts owing…
notwithstanding a clean bill of health… a scam? the guys we have to contact in order to assist us with the downpayment of the zero amount are SettleMyDebt@sars.gov.za hehehe
That’s a legitimate SARS email address. Shown here.
So probably not a scam. Someone screwed up the SQL query that generated the list of people to email.
I can just see it. Someone at IT central is wondering why the load on the servers are not coming down from yesterday’s provisional tax run…
The reverse happened to me. SARS told me there was an issue, emails, and all that.
Logging in, no issue.
Turned out the SQL query for the user front end was screwed up.
What happened?
They dug back into 2002-2004 records claiming I never paid XYZ … we are talking thousands they claimed they never received on very limited records they had. FWIW, it was the 2nd time they did this. A few years back similar. Then I paid the R2k they said was never paid … it was cheaper than to argue.
This time I got really angry. So happens that a few days before they emailed I accidentally found some old records I refused to recycle. Gutfeel all these years.
Sent them copies of their own documentation, their receipts as well as copies of the cheques they cashed back then.
There are many stories of similar happening to others.
My case, 2022 when they pulled the move going back to 2002 … we are talking 20 years later.
EDIT: AND that was with annual confirmation that all SARS matters were 100% up to date. Some serias “SQL query” issues I tell you.
Indeed, it could be that. Now that you mention it, happened to my wife as well. Frontend says “hurray, you’re compliant”, but there was a small amount outstanding from 2018.
We moved my wife over to the same tax consultants I used after that. Took a bit of money to get it all sorted, but that is that. I want a really really big buffer between me and SARS. Lately they really come across as the enemy.
It used to be that SARS didn’t mind a late filing, as long as no money was owed. No longer the case. They’ll nail you R250 per quarter (or R1000 per year), even after the fact now.
Man, I miss the days when they used to put ads on TV to thank us.
i’m sure the sabc now owes sars such a lot that sars will make you non-compliant for even entertaining such a thought
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SARS is not doing themselves any favors. My feeling the last few years has been that they are getting to a point of being dishonest. My wife had some dealings with them where they were really taking chances. That is not what you want the average tax payer to think/feel.
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die appel val NOOIT ver van die boom 
I don’t like the arguments that says “just look at the rest of Africa”, because I think they are borderline racist… but it is hard not to notice. In Namibia, they have been at the point of dishonesty (not paying out claimed VAT to farmers by keeping them in a perpetual audit loop) for over a decade now. It seems to be the way these things go.
…and that eventually leads to dishonesty from the taxpayer
… there is none righteous, not even one… rings true
SARS decided one of my parents owes tax (which is incorrect) and even though it was disputed and under review, the money was automatically deducted from one of their investments. This was after receiving the due letter less than two weeks ago.
Apparently you pay first then ask for a refund once the dispute is corrected. 
yip, like McDonald’s 
They even went so far to request to deduct it out of our salaries at work. I had to call our HR pay department and inform them that my tax consultant is busy with this. She needed to send met letters and stuff so that my work can reverse the deduction and that I already paid the fine and that we are busy with SARS with a dispute.
Few months later, randomly money pops in my account from SARS side paying me back.
colour blindness could at one stage keep you from especially certain military employment, but it won’t keep you from being employed at SARS 
especially red/green deficiency
And I bet you there was not interest paid back either … one could argue that … but not sure if one wants to.
Last year, as I said elsewhere here, I accidentally paid a little too much tax, and they owed me about 1% back. After it dragged out a really long time, the reason was finally given: They needed proof that I paid them the year before that. So I sent them the proof of payment pdf from the bank, which thankfully I always keep.
I mean, seriously… how crap is their bookkeeping if you have to remind them that you paid them!?
Think about it … if you can stall the payout of millions of rands legally for as long as you can, how would that improve your “bottom line”?
Don’t subscribe to incompetence where malice (dishonesty) could suffice. 
yeeeeaaars ago i met a guy who wrote a program enabling money transfers to the ‘holding bank’ - the guys having your money inbetween your eft and the other chaps getting it into their account - to be speeded up - billions of bucks every day, milliseconds count… time=money… he negotiated a miniscule percentage; do the math 
JIP, not even a sorry, it was our mistake or something and we paying you back. They super fast “like we all know when they want money” and will remind you, or not and later send you a mail to inform you own us this now. Just got a notification from my bank that S paid something in my account, that’s all.
Just saw this …