This is the first time that I have seen SARS getting a judgement for Administrative Penalties.

What does it mean? Well, the judgement was against a company, and that company has already been deregistered at CIPC. It was always dormant, so it owns no assets that the sheriff can seize.

In other words, the judgment can have no effect whatsoever on the company.

Can other assets be seized? No, not those of the shareholder, the director, the Public Officer nor the Tax Representative, none of whom were mentioned in the judgement.

I asked Perplexity.AI whether there had ever been such a case against the Public Officer (who can be held personally rsponsible for those penalties) and this was the response:

No publicly documented court judgment exists where SARS has obtained a ruling specifically holding a public officer personally liable for a dormant company’s administrative non-compliance penalties due to failure to submit nil tax returns.

I guess, however, that there’s always a first time.

As an experiment, we are completing all outstanding Nil returns and applying for remission of penalties.

I wonder what the outcome of that will be.