The South African Revenue Service (Sars) on Tuesday provided an update on the Savings Withdrawal Benefit under the two-pot system, saying it had received over 2 million directive applications, issued 1.9m directives with a combined gross value of R49.58 billion.
The two-pot system, aimed at addressing household economic challenges, continues to see robust engagement from South African taxpayers.
It attributed the gap between applications and issued directives to several factors:
– 169 509 applications were declined for a myriad of reasons, ranging from systems failures from the fund management entities to wrong identification number, wrong tax number etc.
– 41 523 directives were declined because of insufficient funds, wrong codes etc.
– 28 525 directives were cancelled by taxpayers who changed their minds.
Sars Commissioner Edward Kieswetter cautioned taxpayers to avoid any actions that could constitute criminality and said it was important to use the correct identity and tax numbers when applying for this benefit.
Media reports indicate that the Financial Sector Conduct Authority is investigating the charges imposed by pension funds and fund administrators on two-pot withdrawals.
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