The Importance of Using a Map for Your Journey
SARS follows the same protocol for any tax debt that is outstanding, including those cases that involve crypto assets. This means that SARS will issue the taxpayer a Letter of Demand indicating what the outstanding debt is, as well as including a time frame in which the taxpayer must settle the debt. What SARS doesn’t tell the taxpayer is that the tax laws provide for various tax debt relief measures that are available, to provide the taxpayer relief and a feasible way forward.
Where a taxpayer does not have legal merits to pursue any form of dispute pertaining to the tax debt arising from its crypto trading, but has difficulty in settling their tax debt, a Compromise of Tax Debt application may be available to the taxpayer.
The Compromise aims to aid taxpayers in reducing their tax liability by means of a Compromise Agreement, which the taxpayer enters into with SARS. Where a taxpayer approaches SARS correctly, and their financial circumstances warrant it, SARS can reduce the tax debt, and the taxpayer can pay off the balance in terms of the Compromise.
In the end, total tax compliance is the ultimate goal, be it through the rectification of an error by SARS or securing a settlement that is more affordable to the taxpayer in a given instance.
