SARS Service Failures: Practical Strategies for Effective Complaints and Escalation to the Tax Ombud
Duration: 1 hour
Price: R0.00
SARS Service Failures: Practical Strategies for Effective Complaints and Escalation to the Tax Ombud
Presenters : Frik Pretorius , Yolisa Dyasi
Overview
Prolonged SARS verifications, delayed refunds, unresolved service requests, poor communication and officials who cannot be reached rate amongst the top three significant concerns impacting tax practitioners.
The 2025 Tax Practice Insights survey records that this administrative load consumes billable hours daily, in practices that are mostly ten people or fewer and that carry a material compliance burden on thin profit margins.
Most practitioners know that the Office of the Tax Ombud exists as an independent avenue of recourse. Considerably fewer can answer the practical question on which the recovery of those hours depends: at what point does a SARS service failure become an Ombud complaint, what must be exhausted before that point, and what distinguishes a submission the Office accepts and acts on from one that is delayed or rejected.
Video content
Part 1: Complaint, Query or Dispute? Identifying the Correct Route
- How to identify the correct route at the outset
- The common mistakes that delay resolution
- When an objection or appeal is the appropriate remedy rather than a complaint
Part 2: The Engagement Record, and What Must Be Exhausted First
- The internal SARS escalation channels, and the order in which they are used
- Building the record of SARS engagements as routine practice rather than a reconstruction exercise
- What the Office of the Tax Ombud expects to see attempted before it will consider a matter
Part 3: What Makes a Strong Complaint to the Tax Ombud
- The documents and evidence that should accompany a complaint
- Structuring a clear complaint chronology
- The common reasons complaints are delayed or rejected
- Defining a realistic and achievable desired outcome
Part 4: Case Studies and Lessons Learnt
- Delayed refund complaints
- Procedural fairness complaints
- Examples of effective complaint submissions
- Trends emerging from taxpayer complaints, and the lessons they carry for practice
Part 5: Presenting a Complaint Persuasively
- Presenting facts persuasively and professionally
- Separating the complaint issue from the tax dispute
- Avoiding undifferentiated document bundles
- Managing a complaint from submission to resolution
Part 6: The Practice View — Delegation, Cost and Recovery
- Which parts of complaint handling can properly be delegated to junior staff, and what that work develops in them
- Assessing when escalation is worth the hours it will take
- Whether and how that time is recovered
Q&A and open discussion
Competencies Developed
On completion of this video, practitioners are able to:
- Distinguish a service complaint from a query and from a dispute, and identify the correct route at the outset, including when an objection is the proper remedy.
- Identify what the Office of the Tax Ombud requires of a complaint: qualifying circumstances, the document set, the chronology, and why complaints are rejected.
- Describe the internal SARS escalation channels to be exhausted before the Office of the Tax Ombud will consider a matter, and the record that evidences them.
- Recognise the engagement record that makes a complaint inexpensive to assemble, and how it is maintained as routine rather than reconstructed under pressure.
- Identify how a complaint is presented persuasively: a defined desired outcome, the service issue separated from the tax dispute, and evidence rather than a document dump.
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