“Taxpayers and their nominated representatives, in the future, will be allocated a unique digital identity,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Through this digital identity, taxpayers will be able to access a comprehensive review of their tax accounts and registered products.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, Kieswetter emphasised that access will be protected through biometric verification and two-factor authentication.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Once verified, taxpayers will be able to access a comprehensive overview of their account to view and update it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The system will also ensure that taxpayers can check their compliance status, submit queries about their accounts, and fulfil any compliance and payment obligations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Similarly, to enhance taxpayers’ service, our employees, who are appropriately skilled and professional, will be empowered to view the comprehensive accounts of taxpayers,” said Kieswetter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Through this, they will similarly be empowered to resolve any query, and progress or resolve any outstanding matter on behalf of the taxpayer.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Aside from the digital identity, SARS will partner with the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) to build a cost-effective instant payment system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kieswetter said the system is intended to increase financial inclusion, reduce cash in circulation, and strengthen the overall integrity of the national payments system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The taxman also has plans to develop an intelligent case management system, which Kieswetter said will be central to the strategic intent of voluntary compliance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The intelligent case management system will automate future routing tasks, leverage big data, and leverage agentic artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lastly, SARS also wants to modernise the value-added tax (VAT) system by linking its systems to points of sale throughout the value chain, which will ultimately enable the automatic assessment of VAT returns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Big modernisation drive at Sars<\/h2>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Kieswetter-1600-x-900-1200x675.jpg\")
Edward Kieswetter, commissioner at the South African Revenue Service<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\nFunding to modernise the taxman’s systems became a major focus point in February 2025, following the first postponement of South Africa’s budget speech since the country became a democracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A proposed VAT increase from 15% to 17% sparked a disagreement within the Government of National Unity, and fierce backlash from opposition parties. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Democratic Alliance (DA) called on the government to inject more money into the revenue service to modernise its systems and crack down on non-compliance, rather than raising taxes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“There is no need to tax to find these funds, which can easily be sourced from failing, failed, and underperforming programmes and subprogrammes,” the DA said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The party’s views aligned with previous comments from Kieswetter, who said as much as R800 billion in tax went uncollected due to outdated systems and practices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He explained that SARS was once a leader in digital modernisation in South Africa before state capture. However, the entity was poorly funded during the state capture era. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Partly due to financial constraints, but also a short-term approach, budgets were frozen for a number of years, and SARS fell behind in driving technological innovation,” Kieswetter said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“We have now managed to restore some additional funds to continue our modernisation, but we are still substantially underfunded to move at speed in an environment that is changing exponentially.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The commissioner added that SARS not only had to play catch-up, but also accelerate its modernisation to remain relevant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“The important lesson here is that the digitalisation journey is not a finite project, but a new way of being. It is an ongoing journey,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Once you suspend funding, the end result will always be the suspension of innovation and regression against the progress of other administrations.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Finance minister Enoch Godongwana subsequently allocated R7.5 billion in extra funding to SARS over the medium term.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The South African Revenue Service says its “Modernisation 3.0” plan will enable the eventual automation of VAT assessments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341076,"featured_media":637939,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10106],"tags":[59118,61362,19101,31312,99119],"class_list":["post-637892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-banking","tag-digital-identity","tag-edward-kieswetter","tag-south-african-revenue-service-sars","tag-taxes","tag-value-added-tax-vat-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637892"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341076"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=637892"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637892\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":637965,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637892\/revisions\/637965"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/637939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=637892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=637892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=637892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Funding to modernise the taxman’s systems became a major focus point in February 2025, following the first postponement of South Africa’s budget speech since the country became a democracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A proposed VAT increase from 15% to 17% sparked a disagreement within the Government of National Unity, and fierce backlash from opposition parties. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Democratic Alliance (DA) called on the government to inject more money into the revenue service to modernise its systems and crack down on non-compliance, rather than raising taxes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“There is no need to tax to find these funds, which can easily be sourced from failing, failed, and underperforming programmes and subprogrammes,” the DA said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The party’s views aligned with previous comments from Kieswetter, who said as much as R800 billion in tax went uncollected due to outdated systems and practices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He explained that SARS was once a leader in digital modernisation in South Africa before state capture. However, the entity was poorly funded during the state capture era. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Partly due to financial constraints, but also a short-term approach, budgets were frozen for a number of years, and SARS fell behind in driving technological innovation,” Kieswetter said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“We have now managed to restore some additional funds to continue our modernisation, but we are still substantially underfunded to move at speed in an environment that is changing exponentially.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The commissioner added that SARS not only had to play catch-up, but also accelerate its modernisation to remain relevant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“The important lesson here is that the digitalisation journey is not a finite project, but a new way of being. It is an ongoing journey,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Once you suspend funding, the end result will always be the suspension of innovation and regression against the progress of other administrations.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Finance minister Enoch Godongwana subsequently allocated R7.5 billion in extra funding to SARS over the medium term.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The South African Revenue Service says its “Modernisation 3.0” plan will enable the eventual automation of VAT assessments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341076,"featured_media":637939,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10106],"tags":[59118,61362,19101,31312,99119],"class_list":["post-637892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-banking","tag-digital-identity","tag-edward-kieswetter","tag-south-african-revenue-service-sars","tag-taxes","tag-value-added-tax-vat-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637892"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341076"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=637892"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637892\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":637965,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637892\/revisions\/637965"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/637939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=637892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=637892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=637892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}