WATCH: Grateful petrol attendant shares message of thanks after two-pot Sars victory

Not often enough does the opportunity arise to celebrate small victories for the common man notching up a win over the government.

Petrol attendant Isaac Makhuthudisa spent two years fighting the South African Revenue Service (Sars) over a case of mistaken identity.

After being assured the administrative error had been cleared, Sars still swallowed his two-pot payout in September, denting his humble ambitions.

Mistaken identity

Makhuthudisa’s Sars profile was registered on the Sars system as belonging to another business owner who had the same identification number, barring the last three digits.

Sars erroneously attributed the businessman’s tax bill to Makhuthudisa, who spent months submitting documents to clarify the situation.

ALSO READ: Sars swallows petrol attendant’s two-pot payout over mistaken identity

Thinking all was resolved, he submitted a two-pot retirement fund withdrawal, with Sars absorbing the payment due to unpaid tax.

A patron of the filling station where Makhuthudisa works notified The Citizen of the situation, and several queries later, the petrol attendant was having his complaint addressed.

After a nervous clarification of which bank details were required, his two-pot payment cleared in the last week of January.

“I want let you know that they did send the money this morning and I would like to say thank you so much cause if it wasn’t you, I was not going to get my money back easily. I really appreciate it,” Makhuthudisa told The Citizen on the day Sars made good on their promise.

Home improvement

South Africans requested two-pot withdrawals for a host of reasons, but one of Makhuthudisa’s ambitions was for humble home improvement.

“I just want to say thank you to The Citizen newspaper team [for the] help me to recover [money] the Sars took from me,” Makhuthudisa said in a recent thank you video.

“With that money, I wanted to buy some aluminum windows, replace the old ones with the new ones.

“I am so grateful that The Citizen newspaper team did manage to help me to recover my money. I am so happy, and may God bless them [so they can] help others [the] same as me,” he said.

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