The capture of SARS was one of the most strategically devastating acts of state capture. By neutralising the tax authority's investigative capacity, the capture network ensured that the illicit financial flows generated by state capture — the billions siphoned through Eskom, Transnet, and other SOEs — could not be traced or taxed.
Tom Moyane was appointed SARS Commissioner in September 2014. The Nugent Commission found that before his appointment, Moyane had met Bain & Company's South Africa managing partner Vittorio Massone at least 36 times — proving the restructuring was pre-planned. Moyane was a known Zuma loyalist with no tax administration experience.
Bain was paid R164 million (later R217M with variations) for a restructuring that dismantled SARS's most effective units. The Large Business Centre — which handled tax compliance for major corporations and had been critical to South Africa's revenue collection — was broken up. Senior investigators who had built expertise over decades were sidelined or forced out. The unit that investigated illicit financial flows was gutted.
The Nugent Commission, established by President Ramaphosa in 2018, found that the restructuring was not a genuine organisational improvement but a deliberate dismantling. Revenue collection suffered. SARS missed targets year after year. The estimated revenue loss: over R100 billion — money that could have funded healthcare, education, and infrastructure.
Moyane was fired in November 2018. The Constitutional Court upheld his dismissal. Bain paid R631 million in total restitution and was banned from government contracts for 10 years. Massone was fired by Bain globally. Criminal investigations into Moyane are ongoing.
The SARS capture case is significant because it demonstrates the state capture network's sophistication. They didn't just steal from SOEs — they systematically disabled the institutions that could have detected and stopped the theft.