Death and taxes

Nothing in life is certain, except death and taxes – or so the expression goes. And over the past two decades South African criminals and tax dodgers have come to realise this truth the hard way. Tax sleuth Johann van Loggerenberg was at the centre of many of SARS’ high-profile cases during his time there.

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Nothing in life is certain, except death and taxes or so the saying goes. South African tax dodgers and criminals from drug dealers and rhino horn smugglers to one of the hitmen who shot Brett Kebble have come to realise this truth the hard way. Former tax sleuth and bestselling author of Rogue, Johann van Loggerenberg, was at the centre of several such high-profile SARS cases that spanned many years. He offers a riveting insiders view on some of these cases, like the investigations into Dave King, Billy Rautenbach, Barry Tannenbaum, as well as Jacob Zuma, Julius Malema and others. Since the early days of democracy, a small but determined band of people at SARS who fulfilled various investigative functions came to know every trick and scam in the book, and developed the expertise on how best to hold tax dodgers to account. Their cases often dragged on for years, with many of the defendants using every legal trick to fight back but SARS never gave up. Van Loggerenberg also revisits events around the hollowing out of the tax authority post-2014 and brings the reader up to date on the extraordinary occurrences at SARS since the new dawn of the Cyril Ramaphosa era.