Commentary: Pienaar Brothers (Pty) Ltd v Commissioner for the South African Revenue Service Another

Abstract

A case comment dealing with the South African High Court's approach to test the constitutionality of retroactive tax legislation. The retroactive tax legislation in question belonged to two genres: it sought to address a perceived loophole in tax legislation and at the same time altered the design of the tax legislation. The comment assess the High Court's decision on whether the use of retroactive tax legislation in the particular circumstances was precluded by the Rule of Law or amounted to an arbitrary and an unjustifiable deprivation of property protected under South Africa's Constitution, 1996.

Keywords: Retroactive tax legislation, Rule of Law, Deprivation of property

JEL Classification: K10, K34