The South African regulator began sending out audit requests to cryptocurrency traders requesting them to disclose the amount of trades, local media MyBroadband reports. In particular, the South African Revenue Service (SARS) wants to know the purpose for which the taxpayers purchased cryptocurrency and a letter from the crypto provider confirming the investments.
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The local tax company Tax Consulting South Africa says the watchdog's move would have been reasonably expected by the taxpayers, if they had made any disclosure of cryptocurrency-linked trading amounts in their tax filings.
"However, in this case, we had explicitly confirmed that the taxpayers had not, to their knowledge, ever effected a cryptocurrency-related transaction," the company highlighted.
SARS' move comes after the South Africa's financial watchdog, the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA), initiated tightening of regulatory rules for digital assets such as ETH, XRP and LTC over the country’s largest Ponzi scheme.
As iHodl reported, in December 2020, the South Africa-based bitcoin trading platform MTI was placed under provisional liquidation with users' funds worth almost $900 million. Later, MTI's management wrote on Telegram they were misled and the company’s head Johann Steynberg allegedly fled to Brazil.
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