What is it?
High Wealth Individual (HWI) is a person who owns liquid assets worth R75 million or more. This group of taxpayers plays an important role in South Africa’s economy and in sustaining growth in revenue collection. Guided by best practices from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, foreign tax authorities have established High Net Worth Individual departments which serve this client base. Considering this development, SARS launched the High Wealth Individual (HWI) Unit to provide clarity and certainty to HWI taxpayers, and to make it easy for these individuals to comply with their tax obligations by offering a specialised service. This unit promotes and encourages voluntary compliance to increase revenue collection.
SARS HWI Unit
Launched in April 2021, the HWI Unit is mandated to deal with the complexity of HWI taxpayers’ tax affairs and to afford these taxpayers a differentiated and dedicated end-to-end service. Through efficient service to HWI taxpayers, the HWI Unit works to improve voluntary compliance.
The HWI Unit will focus on individual taxpayers with complex financial arrangements and significant wealth, often derived from multiple sources.
Our mandate is to:
- Offer special services to cater to HWIs’ complex tax affairs.
- Build professional partnerships with HWI taxpayers.
- Resolve queries efficiently.
Value proposition
The value proposition offered by the HWI Unit is to promote voluntary compliance at the lowest cost to the taxpayer and SARS, with a three-pronged approach consisting of:
- Differentiated Service: a dedicated relationship manager will consistently and proactively engage HWIs to encourage transparent communication.
- Operational Effectiveness: highly skilled and professional teams who specialise in resolving complex tax matters in all tax products serve HWIs (some of whom operate in multiple tax jurisdictions).
- Value Chain: the Unit offers end-to-end service that centrally manages taxpayers’ compliance requirements across tax products.
HWI headquarters
The HWI headquarters is housed within the Large Business Centre (Woodmead North Office Park, 54 Maxwell Drive, Jukskeiview, Sandton, 2196).
Need help?
Clients in the HWI portfolio have a dedicated mailbox that deals with appointment requests and queries:
Please note: this mailbox is exclusively for High Wealth Individuals. Queries received from other taxpayers will be directed to ContactUs@sars.gov.za.
HWIs can use these channels to verify their tax compliance:
- SARS Online Query System
- SARS eFiling
- SARS Contact Centre: 0800 00 7277
