Most of the South African taxpayers cited in the Panama Papers and identified as risky by the South African Revenue Service (SARS) had used a very similar offshore structure, which was facilitated by a single domestic intermediary, SARS disclosed on Wednesday. The information emerged during an engagement by three parliamentary committees with a range of government departments and agencies involved in the fight against illicit financial flows, base erosion and profit shifting. SARS said in a presentation to the hearing that it started engagements with taxpayers in June last year. The offshore structures of 603 South African residents out of the 1,666 cited in the papers (after removing duplicates) had been facilitated by a single South African intermediary. The papers identified 1,917 cases (including duplicates) where South African residents were cited. Of the cases cited 1,083 were matched against the SARS database, 292 had no records, and 291 had incomplete records. SARS said it h...
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