Influencer hustle meets tax muscle as Sars steps up enforcement - Edward Kieswetter — Sars commissioner Edward Kieswetter

The South African Revenue Service is sticking to its guns over taxing social influencers and plans to conduct outreach programmes so that they know what is expected from them.

No matter how influencers are remunerated – whether with products, services or travel – all of these are deemed as income according to the Income Tax Act, Sars said in a statement on Friday.

Sars commissioner Edward Kieswetter said the taxman is looking forward to working with this group to provide clarity and certainty and help them register for tax.

“Sars is more than willing to assist honest taxpayers to comply with their tax obligations. I am reminding social influencers to uphold their end of the bargain,” he said.

Sars announced last month that media influencers must get their tax affairs in order, as it starts looking into undeclared income earned through online content creation and partnerships. The initiative is part of a broader effort to recover R513-billion in unpaid taxes and achieve the revised revenue target of R1.84-trillion for the current financial year.

It said that not all taxpayers’ needs are the same, and it is expanding its segmentation model to include national and provincial government, social influencers and the gig economy.

“The segment of social influencers is composed of modern entrepreneurs, who can be classified as sole proprietors or independent contractors. These are technologically savvy individuals who have identified a niche in the market to provide a generalised offering that leverages their social following.

Shift

“When managing this segment, Sars will handle each such situation on a case-by-case basis according to current income-tax brackets. Some of these cases may generally fall into the provisional taxpayer category,” it said.

In terms of the new segments, such as social influencers, the service said it understands that traditional marketing campaigns are increasingly digitising through smart technologies. It is generally finding that most marketing budgets are contracting social personalities to lend their image to digital platforms, which is a shift away from established marketing houses toward individuals with a sizeable following.