The South African Revenue Service missed its first-quarter tax revenue target by R13.1bn, a document in Fin24’s possession reveals.

If this trend continues, it would miss its overall target by about R50bn in 2017. SARS set a collection target of R1.265trn for the year, the document says.

A shortfall of this scale would have a severe impact on Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba’s  Medium Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS) in October, where he will need to find extra revenue to allocate to budgets planned for social grants, state-owned entities, departments, provinces and municipalities.

The country's 2017 budget started the year with a deficit of R149bn, which was 3.1% of the country's gross domestic product (GDP).

source: News24