Pretoria, 09 March 2018 – The South African Revenue Service (SARS) has appointed eight debt collection agencies to recover as much as possible of the R16.6-billion in debt owed to SARS.

The objective is to boost revenue collection by outsourcing the recovery of older and relatively small amounts due to SARS. The contract takes effect immediately and will run until 28 Feb 2019.

At present, over 2.3 million taxpayers and traders owe SARS just under R150-billion.

The agencies that have been appointed are, CSS Credit Solution Services (Pty) Ltd, ITC Business Administrators (Pty) Ltd, Medaco Capital Services (Pty) Ltd, New Integrated Credit Solutions (Pty) Ltd, Norman Bisset & Associates Group (Pty) Ltd, Revenue Consulting (Pty) Ltd, Transactional Capital Recoveries (Pty) Ltd and Van De Venter Mojapelo (Pty) Ltd.

Taxpayers and traders with outstanding accounts will only be contacted, via electronic channels. The agencies will embark on the traditional debt collection activities, including outbound calls; tracing of taxpayers, sending out notices (can be SMSs, emails or letters/notices).

Under no circumstances should  debtors pay money directly to the debt collection agency. All outstanding taxor duties must only be paid directly to SARS via authorised payment channels.

The debt collection agencies have also been tasked with encouraging non-compliant taxpayers to submit their outstanding returns to SARS so as to avoid the imposition of any further interest or penalties and criminal charges. SARS invites all taxpayers to please co-operate with the service providers above. Failure to do this could result in criminal prosecution.

The revenue collected by SARS is vital for fuelling the growth and development of our country and assisting SARS to achieve its tough target of R1.217 trillion. Compliant taxpayers who pay their dues should be justifiably proud that they contribute to this national agenda as responsible citizens.

SARS thanks these taxpayers and is committed to improving its service to the taxpaying public while introducing measures to make it easier for all taxpayers to comply with their fiscal obligations.