Reports continue to roll in of cheques being stolen and cashed, prompting the country's biggest recipient of money, the taxman, to explore ways to make it easier and safer for you to pay what you owe to your local Receiver of Revenue.
In May SA Revenue Services (SARS) warned the public on making out cheques to local Receivers correctly so they could not be easily altered.
Now it plans to introduce a system where you can make direct deposits into a SARS account at a branch of a bank near you.
Last week a reader phoned in connection with the Personal Finance series on signing cheques to relate that a crossed cheque for R72 000 he had written and posted to his local Receiver had been cashed by someone else.
His own bank was unable to produce the cheque which he found suspicious but he was supplied with a microfiche copy of it by the bank which had cashed it. Even a rather blurred microfiche slide showed that the Receiver of Revenue had been erased as the recipient and another name written in.
In this case the bank undertook to make good the loss.
A spokesman from one of the banks said criminal syndicates were intercepting cheques and using very sophisticated methods to remove the names of payees in such a way that it was not detectable by the banks. There was no ink or writing that he was aware of that could not be removed with some time and trouble. Normally, if the bank teller can see an unsigned alteration on the cheque, he or she will reject it.
On the fact that the cheque could not be produced by the bank, he agreed the possibility that a syndicate was operating in collusion with a bank employee could not be eliminated, but suggested it could also simply be that the cheque had gone astray.
One way to try to make cheques safer was to make them "not transferable", he said. Where possible, it would be better to make electronic payments. If you pay an account electronically you do not get a receipt, but there is an audit trail from your account.
Christo Henning, media liaison officer for SARS, said it was unfortunate that at this stage you cannot deposit funds into a SARS account at any bank, which is the best alternative to writing a cheque for large sums of money. SARS is aware of the administrative difficulties of deposits into SARS accounts.
"To combat these obstacles, SARS is in the process of computerising its cash offices to enable them to issue instantaneous receipts for deposits made.
"Another project under review at the Tender Board is the creation of a countrywide facility at banks to receive payments on behalf of SARS."
As far as money due to you is concerned, SARS is issuing special forms to encourage you to provide your bank details which you can obtain at any Receiver of Revenue office (see page 7).
"This information cannot be used by SARS to randomly gain access to your bank account," Henning promised. "Where SARS requires access to a taxpayer's bank account, this action must be authorised by a magistrate."