In December 2024 the Cape Town tax court found that an additional assessment made by SARS in relation to a contingency policy premium was out of time and had prescribed. In doing so, the court made some important findings regarding the nature of contingency insurance that properly recognise the nature of modern insurance.

The citrus

In March 2024, the Supreme Court of Appeal held that SARS lawfully seized a director’s property during a search and seizure operation conducted at the premises of the company.

SARS had obtained a warrant from the high court in terms of the Tax Administration Act authorising it to enter and search the company’s premises and

The principles of peremption (abandoning a right of appeal by conduct inconsistent with an intention to exercise that right) were restated in this Constitutional Court judgment and are worth remembering.

“Peremption is a waiver of one’s constitutional right to appeal in a way that leaves no shred of reasonable doubt about the losing party’s self-resignation