The South African Revenue Services (Sars) on Tuesday dispelled rumours that there was an extension to the Special Voluntary Disclosure Programme (SVDP), saying that the closing date is imminent
The SVDP is a once-off opportunity to disclose off-shore assets and income by taxpayers with undeclared foreign assets or income with the benefit of being given some relief. The final date for submitting an application under the SVDP is still August 31.
The SVDP closing date has already been extended twice from the initial date of March 31, announced in the 2016 Budget. The SVDP closing date was first extended from March 31 to June 30, in the Bill introduced in Parliament.
Proposals were then made to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance to further extend the SVDP deadline to September 30.
The committee considered the proposals but only extended the closing date to August 31, because the automatic exchange of information internationally was, and is still, to begin in September 2017.
Sars said it was aware that there may be exceptional cases where taxpayers were struggling to obtain off-shore financial information that is required for an SVDP application.
The revenue services said it will accept the submission of an application that estimates the values of off-shore assets in a bid to assist these taxpayers to meet the August 31 deadline.
– African News Agency (ANA)
