Pretoria - Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan today announced that the Tax Administration Bill had been approved by Parliament.
According to Gordhan, the Bill incorporates the common administrative elements of current tax law into one piece of legislation, and makes further improvements in this area.
Delivering the country's budget in Parliament today, Gordhan said the Bill was expected to be promulgated and most of its provisions brought into force in 2012.
Gordhan also announced that government intends establishing a dedicated ombud for tax matters.
"The office is intended to provide taxpayers with a low-cost mechanism to address administrative difficulties that cannot be resolved by SARS," he said.
Since 1 April 2011, SARS has issued over 700 000 taxpayers with administrative penalties for failing to submit an income tax return on time as required.
This, according to Gordhan, has helped in increasing the proportion of on-time submission.
SARS received almost 5 million returns during the most recent tax season - a 23% increase over the year before.
