The South African Revenue Service (SARS) has collected R900-billion in the 2013/14 fiscal year, according to the 2014 Tax Statistics Bulletin.

“In the 2013/14 fiscal year, tax revenue collected amounted to R900-billion and grew by R86.2-billion compared to the previous year,” said SARS and National Treasury on Tuesday.

This is up from the R813.8-billion collected previously.

This growth, according to the 2014 Tax Statistics Bulletin, was supported by solid performance in customs duty.

The 2014 Tax Statistics Bulletin, released on Tuesday, provides an overview of tax revenue collection and tax return information for the 2009/10 to 2013/14 fiscal years, and the 2010 to 2013 tax years, respectively.

The 2014 Tax Statistics Bulletin showed growth in personal income tax and corporate income tax.

The bulletin also showed that the number of individuals registered for income tax also rose. As at 31 March 2014 the number of individuals registered for income tax had increased by 1.4-million from 15.4-million in the previous year to 16.8-million.

The bulletin also noted that there are many taxpayers currently submitting returns who are below the compulsory submission threshold.

It was also found that the most assessed taxpayers were based in the Gauteng province.

Additionally, the bulletin noted that there were nearly 2.7 million registered companies at 31 March 2014 and nearly 700 000 registered for Value Added Tax vendors.

VAT collections grew by 10.5% for 2013/14 compared to the previous fiscal year. VAT was the second largest contributor to total tax revenue for 2013/14, totalling R237.7-billion (26.4%).

The bulletin is the seventh in the edition of the publication.

The objective of releasing the country’s Tax Statistics is to publicise available, comprehensive tax revenue data that can assist policy makers and provide insights on economic indicators to researchers, analysts, the media and the public in general.