<\/p>\n
Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana said out of 5 303 public entities, 404 owed the South African Revenue Services (Sars) a whopping R5.9 billion debt in PAYE and VAT.<\/p>\n
Godongwana said R2.4bn was owed in PAYE and R3.5bn in VAT. <\/p>\n
\u201cOf the R5.9bn debt, R1bn is under dispute, leaving a balance of R4.9bn undisputed, of which R2.9bn is older than three years,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
This takes place as 4 899 (92%) public entities and departments paid their PAYE, VAT and other tax obligations on time.<\/p>\n
Godongwana would not name the defaulting public entities.<\/p>\n
This was due to the taxpayer confidentiality provision of the Tax Administration Act.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are unable to provide any further specific taxpayer information including the list of the defaulting taxpayers.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt should be noted further that the specific entities can provide directly to the parliamentary oversight bodies for such information.<\/p>\n
\u201cSars information is limited to employer accounts and the defaulting taxpayer debt is at an aggregate entity level.<\/p>\n
\u201cInformation on the affected employees is not yet available from the current tax administration data,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Godongwana was responding to parliamentary questions from Freedom Front Plus MP Wouter Wessels.<\/p>\n
In June, the \u201cCape Times\u201d reported that there were nine municipalities that have disclosed information on arrears of monthly statutory contributions to the pension funds.<\/p>\n
Of the nine affected municipalities, six did not pay over R81.5 million collected from employee pension contributions.<\/p>\n
Godongwana said Sars debt collection processes were employed to follow up on defaulting taxpayers and arrangements made to enforce that the debt was settled within reasonable time where feasible.<\/p>\n
\u201cEngagements with National Treasury to deduct from grants the necessary amounts to settle taxes owed to Sars have been evoked.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the last resort following lack of co-operation or lack of positive response from defaulting taxpayers.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is genuinely concerning for state organs not to comply with the very tax laws that generate revenue that enables them to exist.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is in order to deliver on their respective mandates of rendering public service to South African citizens who are the taxpaying community.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cape Times<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana said out of 5 303 public entities, 404 owed the South African Revenue Services (Sars) a whopping R5.9 billion debt in PAYE and VAT. Godongwana said R2.4bn was owed in PAYE and R3.5bn in VAT. \u201cOf the R5.9bn debt, R1bn is under dispute, leaving a balance of R4.9bn undisputed, of which […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[2442,14735,7784,15773,8693,1111,6851,1400],"class_list":["post-203114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-politics","tag-billion","tag-organs","tag-owe","tag-r5-9","tag-sars","tag-state","tag-taxes","tag-unpaid"],"yoast_head":"\n