South African Accountants Call For Consolidation Of Tax Laws

by Amanda Banks, Tax-News.com, London

23 October 2001

The South African Institute of Chartered Accountants has urged the government to consolidate all the laws applying to capital gains tax because it says the current legislative 'maze' is making life very difficult for tax practitioners.

The Institute submitted a proposal to amend 52 paragraphs of the original 86 contained in an act passed earlier this year as part of the Second Revenue Laws Amendment Bill to Parliament's finance committee. SAICA's tax committee chairman, Beric Croombe, told Business Day: 'The difficulty facing taxpayers insofar as capital gains tax is concerned is that they now have to regard two separate acts as well as this bill to establish exactly what the provisions relating to it are.'

The SA Revenue Service's (SARS) tax laws administration General Manager, Kosie Louw, has pledged to provide an informal consolidation of the laws available on the SARS website. He said he recognised the need to consolidate the Income Tax Act, but it would be time consuming and would take about a year and the service had been busy lately formulating a new series of tax laws.

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