Edward Kieswetter goes on a R2 trillion victory lap

As commissioner Edward Kieswetter nears the end of his tenure at the South African Revenue Service (SARS), the taxman has surpassed R2 trillion in net revenue collections for the 2025/26 fiscal year.

This marks a record milestone achieved through a sustained crackdown on non-compliance during Kieswetter’s time at the helm.

This is according to Tax Consulting South Africa’s partner and head of strategic engagement and compliance, Jashwin Baijoo, who said SARS achieved a significant victory.

The revenue service has officially surpassed R2 trillion in net revenue collection for the 2025/26 fiscal year – the highest revenue collected in the country’s democratic era.

Baijoo said this milestone shows that SARS’s ongoing commitment to effective tax administration, including enhanced focus on enforcing sanctions for non-compliance, has paid off.

The taxman has faced a wave of challenges over the past few years, including a sluggish domestic economy, geopolitical tensions, global supply-chain disruptions, and, notably, a growing illicit economy.

Despite these headwinds, SARS has maintained and even improved voluntary compliance and facilitated legitimate trade, contributing to overall fiscal health.

The revised revenue estimate for 2025/26 required 8.2% year-on-year growth, amounting to R151.7 billion. “SARS not only met but exceeded these expectations, showcasing its resilience,” Baijoo said.

Significant contributions from major tax categories, including Value-Added Tax and Corporate Income Tax, led to revenue surpluses by the end of March 2026.

Kieswetter’s strong stance on eradicating non-compliance is echoed in his views on the illicit economy’s growth as his tenure at SARS nears its end, with the commissioner set to step down at the start of May 2026.

“There is no such thing as a cheap deal in the illicit economy, and the real cost is paid by society at large,” Kieswetter said. “We will not allow criminal syndicates to hollow out the tax system.”

“SARS, working with other law-enforcement agencies, is determined to disrupt, dismantle, and shut down illicit trading networks, and to make non‑compliance hard and costly.”

SARS’s AI-driven compliance and R316 billion revenue boost

Ensuring non-compliance is hard and costly, Baijoo said. Some of SARS’ key compliance drivers for the fiscal year are –

• Debt cash collections
• Preventing impermissible and fraudulent refund claims
• Voluntary disclosure interventions to regularise tax affairs
• Countering syndicated tax and customs crimes, valuation fraud, and customs seizures
• Applying data science and artificial intelligence (AI) to identify and mitigate compliance risks to safeguard the fiscus

Echoing its strategic objective of making non-compliance hard and costly, SARS’s Compliance Programme interventions generated R316.39 billion in compliance revenue.

This translates to an impressive year-on-year growth of R12.4 billion, which Baijoo said solidifies the success of these initiatives.

“With SARS’ enhanced non-compliance detection capabilities and a sharp focus on both past and future non-compliance, correct tax and legal guidance has never been more critical,” he said.

In light of this, the most prudent approach for taxpayers is to heed SARS’ warning that non-compliance will be both difficult and costly.

This is especially important, as the Tax Administration Act sets out a laundry list of criminal offences for tax non-compliance.

In addition to revenue achievements, SARS recently announced its Modernisation 3.0 initiative, which aims to enhance taxpayer services and streamline operations through innovative digital technologies.

This programme will introduce a unique digital identity for taxpayers, integrating biometric and two-factor authentication to secure interactions with SARS, Baijoo explained.

SARS has been clear that it has, and will, take full advantage of technological advancements, including AI, data science, and machine learning algorithms, to counter criminality and non-compliance.

These data-driven insights will inform SARS on all transactional records for specific taxpayers and, using AI, will reduce the “manhours” and the room for error usually associated with collecting this information.

An entire team is no longer needed to extrapolate these records into strong legal cases for non-compliance. Now, tech-savvy individuals co-existing with AI are sufficient.

“This collaborative approach enables SARS to gain access to a comprehensive dataset, facilitating more robust evaluations of taxpayers’ financial activities,” Baijoo said.

“These developments signal a need for heightened diligence in tax record keeping and reporting, with SARS clear in its mandate to collect revenue and eradicate non-compliance by whatever means necessary.”