SARS must stop punishing defenceless citizens for SARS' admin mistakes.

SARS was under taxing my mother, so to her surprise, they sent her emails stating that she owes them R56 000 and she must pay it back. She sent documentation to prove that, keeping her living expenses into account, she can only pay them in instalments of R500 per month. Irrespective of her communication with them and putting these arrangements in place, they started deducting all the money that remains for her to live off following her compulsory deductions. This has left her earning R0 to live from each month since November 2023 (it's now November 2024).

Considering that she lives a bit far from East London, their closest branch from home, she has had to borrow money to visit this branch three times, and in each visit, each consultant would confirm that they received her documentation and that the issue would be sorted but a year later, nothing has changed, leaving her with no choice but to borrow money for a living. It's unbearable. SARS must fix their admin issues instead of punishing defenceless citizens for SARS' admin mistakes. They must also be proactive by making the eFiling process easy and transparent even to the illiterate, instead of being quick to respond with a harsh hand only when there is trouble.