The South African Revenue Service (SARS) has created a much bigger problem for itself than dealing with a potential leak of confidential taxpayer information that found its way into Jacques Pauw’s book‚ The President’s Keepers. On Friday‚ SARS filed papers in the Western Cape High Court seeking an order declaring Pauw had broken the law in revealing that‚ among other things‚ President Jacob Zuma had been paid a salary by long-time ally Roy Moodley for at least four months into his presidency. SARS‚ for reasons that will no doubt become clear in the near future‚ wants a court to say Pauw is a good-for-nothing criminal who only published the revelations about Zuma for personal gain. But‚ in so doing‚ SARS has set itself up for a good old-fashioned tarring and feathering. Here’s why. In 2010, an auditor at the SARS Durban office was‚ as the story goes‚ conducting a routine audit on a company owned by Moodley‚ Royal Security‚ when he discovered that the company had not paid tax for one ...

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