Sars to give every taxpayer a digital identity in sweeping tech overhaul

South Africa's Revenue Service (SARS) has announced 'Modernisation 3.0', a large-scale digital transformation that will assign every taxpayer a unique biometric-secured digital identity consolidating all their accounts. The programme introduces agentic AI for automated compliance risk detection, an instant payment system developed with the South African Reserve Bank, automatic VAT return assessments, and a 'no-stop border-post' customs concept. The announcement coincided with SARS crossing the R2-trillion revenue milestone for the first time, with collections outpacing GDP growth. Over six million taxpayers already receive automatic tax assessments, and the agency prevented an estimated R75-billion in revenue leakage through data-science-driven enforcement.