Some small businesses frustrated by long delays in SARS paying out Employment Tax Incentive

Some small businesses say they’re frustrated by long delays with the payments of government’s Employment Tax Incentive (ETI) by SARS.

The ETI was introduced by government in 2014 as an incentive aimed at encouraging employers to hire young work seekers.

In its 8th year, some businesses have accused SARS of failing the programme with their long audits that they say drag on.

Last month, President Cyril Ramaphosa revealed that the programme has yielded positive results with thousands of young people now in employment. However, this small business owner is concerned about long audits.

“We are doing everything that we have to do to bring young people into employment but there seems to be all sorts of programmes with the incentives, when it has to come to fruition, it just seems to be taking forever and ever. We don’t really know why. SARS doesn’t communicate; they just tell you that we’ve put you on audit. We don’t know why. Sometimes this audit can go forever and even sitting with an audit that has been ongoing for 90 days. So the idea of incentivising employers was good, if the incentive doesn’t come through that is where the problem is,” says business owner Terrence Jayiya.