Taxpayers who make use of the South African Revenue Service’s (SARS) electronic filing system (or as it is generally known, eFiling) will know that, in addition to containing a history of income returns, value-added tax, pay-as-you-earn, etc., a significant amount of personal and company data is stored on the platform. This includes information such as banking details, a person’s physical address, email addresses, and relevant contact persons for companies. Although the system can reportedly handle up to 150 000 returns per day during individual tax filing season, electronic filing usage is far below other countries such as the United States, where more than 90% of returns are filed electronically. The purpose of SARS’s access to personal […]