After being slapped with an R8.4m tax bill, a company in the Western Cape followed the letter of the law in its attempts to challenge the assessment.

SARS, by contrast, failed ‘egregiously’ and ‘dismally’ in its obligations, according to a Tax Court judge, reports TimesLIVE.

After repeatedly missing deadlines and telling lies, said Judge Judith Cloete, when the matter reached court SARS ended up arguing against the defence it had mounted in its papers.

The unnamed company that scored a legal victory over SARS Commissioner Edward Kieswetter, who was named as the respondent, told the court the tax authority's conduct had threatened its existence and the jobs of 50 employees.

SARS' repeated decisions to declare the company non-compliant for tax purposes during the two-year dispute left it unable to get export permits, jeopardised credit facilities with two banks and disqualified it from government funding to attend international trade exhibitions.

Summing up, Cloete said ’SARS has displayed a persistent disregard for the time limits prescribed in the rules ... Also significant is SARS’ misleading of the taxpayer...’.

When it came to considering the tax dispute, Cloete said the only ‘reasonable inference’ from SARS' contradiction of its own argument in court was that it ‘lacks prospects of success on the merits on its defence as currently formulated’.

Full TimesLIVE report