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Data shows a steady increase in South Africa’s middle-class, as well as wealthier residents, selling their homes and emigrating.

Our brain drain is also well documented and given the state of our governance, it’s tough to cast judgement.

Deciding to emigrate isn’t as simple as selling your house and booking a flight abroad, of course, and that’s especially true when it comes to dealing with SARS.

In order to stop paying tax when permanently leaving South Africa, reports BusinessTech, you require a Non-Resident Confirmation Letter.

That letter is proving somewhat harder to come by in recent times:

The non-resident confirmation letter is where the South African Revenue Service (SARS) formally confirms that you are non-resident for tax purposes. They run a system and check to make sure that they relinquish their worldwide taxing right, as this is not something any Revenue Authority wants to see…

One tax consultancy firm said they are increasingly being approached in circumstances where the Non-Resident Confirmation Letter has been rejected.

Often, the correct steps have not been followed during the process of breaking tax residency with SARS. If there’s one thing we can count on, it’s bureaucracy insisting that every box is ticked:

Just like any other legal application, this process has specific requirements and, typical to SARS, these must be met beyond doubt for the letter to be granted.

Keeping in mind that the issuing of the non-resident confirmation letter involves a verification of one’s South African tax residency status – SARS requires various supporting documents for this application to be successful.

I’m getting a headache just thinking about the deluge of documents and admin involved in jumping through SARS’ stringent compliance checks and extensive verification hoops.

As with most complicated SARS-related matters, it is “always advisable that you seek professional advice and competent assistance”.

There’s no chance I’m Googling around, downloading documents, and trying to go it alone. We enlist the expertise of Galbraith | Rushby for tax-related matters and intend to live longer, less stressed lives as a result.

Good luck if you’re headed abroad. Just don’t be that person who touches down in Perth and then slams the country nonstop on social media.

We’re still here. Don’t worry, we have the moaning covered.

[source:bustech]