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A tax practitioner who did work for a construction company has been sentenced to two years in prison for VAT offences.
The SA Revenue Service says that Ritondeni Luvhengo was sentenced in the Bloemfontein Regional Court to 24 months' imprisonment suspended in full for three years for 48 VAT offences.
This included 24 charges for failing to disclose relevant material facts on VAT returns, which he submitted on behalf of the construction firm. He filed the returns without the consent of the firm, in order to obtain a tax clearance certificate, SARS said.
Luvhengo was arrested in September last year, after he failed to appear in court in July. He was released on bail.
"SARS will not tolerate non-compliance by taxpayers and tax practitioners," SARS Commissioner Edward Kieswetter said in a statement. "In fact, we hold practitioners to a higher standard, as important intermediaries in our quest towards voluntary compliance."
Kieswetter said taxpayers should be extremely careful about whom they appoint as tax practitioners and should check the registration status of a practitioner on the SARS website.
Earlier this month, the Hawks arrested two former SARS auditors in Johannesburg for alleged tax crimes worth some R321 million.
The auditors, Corah Madlepollo Kooko and Noluthando Sipokazi Mbanga, as well as a third suspect, Mlondolozi Mncube - who has been described as a "runner" - have been charged with tax fraud that led to a loss of over R277 million to SARS.
The Hawks said that SARS investigators had uncovered a syndicate of more than 20 individuals who were involved in "extensive VAT fraud" and operated over a three-year period. The accused worked in collaboration with small and medium enterprise owners who claimed undue VAT refunds from SARS for their entities.
