Non-Compliant Tax Practitioners - Faith Ngwenya

Business Today in Africa

Africa Business Radio — The disturbing trend where tax practitioners themselves fail to be tax compliant has been brought to the notice of The South African Revenue Services Faith Ngwenya joins is the technical executive at the South African Institute of Professional Accountants (Saipa), she joins Nqobani Mzizi on business today in Africa to shed more lights; she said while there were suggestions that non-compliance was quite widespread, RCBs were not currently in a position to verify this. Sars previously provided information to RCBs about the number of non-compliant members, but this hasn’t been done in recent years. Keith Engel, CEO of the South African Institute of Tax Professionals (Sait), said non-compliance could take on different forms. Some practitioners might have failed to pay a legitimate tax debt to Sars, while “the occasional guy” might have a criminal record. Other issues included failure to keep up with educational compliance requirements, disciplinary action for unethical behavior such as withholding a client’s tax profile because of a contractual dispute or claiming refunds on spurious grounds.