Edward Kieswetter’s departure: what it means for SARS and SA taxpayers
SARS Commissioner: Edward Kieswetter
After nearly six years at the helm of the South African Revenue Service (SARS), Commissioner Edward Kieswetter is quietly steering the organisation towards a leadership handover. His current term — extended by President Cyril Ramaphosa in 2024 to ensure a smooth succession — is set to conclude in 2026, but preparations for his departure are already underway.
Conversations between Kieswetter, Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana, and the President have shifted from strategy and revenue targets to leadership continuity. Internal communications to staff have confirmed that the commissioner is openly addressing the inevitable change, urging employees to keep their focus on SARS’s mission and avoid being distracted by speculation.
It’s a transition he’s approached with the same deliberate planning that has characterised his leadership since 2019. When he returned to SARS from the private sector — after leading Alexander Forbes through a JSE relisting and holding senior roles at Eskom — the agency was in urgent need of restoration. The Nugent Commission had found that under former commissioner Tom Moyane, mismanagement and maladministration had stripped SARS of both skills and credibility.
Rebuilding a weakened institution
Kieswetter’s appointment was seen as a strategic move — a return of a familiar face who had served as Deputy Commissioner from 2004 to 2009 and helped establish units like the Large Business Centre and the High Net Worth Unit. Both had been dismantled under Moyane, leaving SARS without the capacity to adequately investigate and audit complex, high-value taxpayers.
From the outset, Kieswetter made technology the cornerstone of SARS’s revival. His goal was twofold: make paying taxes straightforward for compliant taxpayers, and make avoiding them costly for those who tried.
That vision took shape through initiatives such as auto-assessments, first introduced in 2021. Powered by machine learning and advanced data analytics, the system uses third-party data to pre-fill returns, requiring taxpayers only to confirm or dispute the assessment. By 2025, it covered around six million taxpayers, with expansion to provisional taxpayers on the horizon.
Specialist teams also made a comeback under his watch. The High Net Worth Unit was reinstated, and new capabilities emerged — including a crypto unit to handle the fast-evolving world of digital assets.
Delivering results in turbulent times
Kieswetter’s tenure was marked by complex challenges. SARS had to maintain service during the Covid-19 pandemic, collect revenue from a shrinking tax base, and confront the reality of growing numbers of wealthy South Africans cutting ties with the country. At the same time, middle-income households were under increasing strain from stagnant growth and rising living costs.
Despite these headwinds, SARS achieved record collections year after year, with an ambitious R2 trillion revenue target set for the 2025/26 fiscal year. His final assignment before stepping down is perhaps one of the toughest — finding an additional R50 billion to close a budget shortfall.
Kieswetter has previously stated he would retire at the end of his initial term, a stance he only softened to allow for an “orderly leadership transition.” While his successor has not yet been announced, the groundwork he has laid — from modernised systems to specialist enforcement capacity — is expected to define SARS’s direction long after he leaves.
His time as commissioner has been both a repair job and a reinvention, restoring the institution’s credibility while preparing it for the tax challenges of the future. Whether the next leader can maintain that trajectory will be one of the key questions facing the agency when Kieswetter finally steps away.
