The South African Revenue Service’s (SARS') first commissioner, Trevor van Heerden, has died, the tax body announced on Thursday.

"Mr Van Heerden played an instrumental role in the establishment of SARS as we know it today. He was also deeply involved in the development of the taxation of fringe benefits and the Value-Added Tax Act, 1991," SARS said in a statement.

"He was a skilled and dedicated civil servant who committed more than forty years of his life to SARS and one of its predecessors, Inland Revenue."

Van Heerden died on Wednesday night. No further information was immediately available.

Current Commissioner Edward Kieswetter expressed his condolences to the Van Heerden family on behalf of the tax authority. 

Van Heerden joined the Inland Revenue department in August 1962.

In 1994 the Katz Commission was set up to to review the tax structure in South Africa. It eventually recommended an overhaul of the entire system and that the then Department of Inland Revenue and the Customs and Excise Department, should be merged into one entity.

SARS was established in October 1997, with Van Heerden as its first commissioner. He left in 1999 and was succeeded in the role by now Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan.