On 01 April, in its 25th anniversary year, the South African Revenue Service (SARS) announced the preliminary tax revenue collection outcome after the second year of national COVID-19 lockdown regulations. It should be noted that these are preliminary results, which will be subject to detailed financial reconciliation and a final audit.
For the period ending 31 March, SARS collected a gross amount of R1 884.9 billion (R1 540.5 billion in the prior year). Offset by refunds of R321.1 billion (R290.7 billion in the prior year), this results in net collections of R1 563.8 billion, which represented a surplus of R314.0 billion (25.1%) against the prior year 2020/21.