Specialist: Legal (Customs & Excise) at The South African Revenue Service (SARS)

Job Purpose

• To provide customs and excise pre-litigation and litigation service in the Higher Courts on customs and excise disputes.  The function involves the entire scope of litigation services, from researching legal and tax principles, analysing the merits of SARS’s position, follow internal governance processes, reviewing counsel’s drafts of court documents including pleadings and heads of argument, preparing deponents, and attendance in court when matters are heard. An important part of the pre-litigation process is to timeously attend to all notices of intended legal action in order to prevent unnecessary litigation.

Education and Experience

Minimum Qualification & Experience Required

• Law Degree preferably a LLB AND 8-10 years' experience in a legal / tax environment, of which 3-4 years at operational specialist level.
• Admission as an attorney or advocate is a further requirement.  
• Experience in a Customs & Excise/International Trade Litigation environment will further enhance the candidate’s application.

Minimum Functional Requirements

Job Outputs:

Process

• To prepare cases involving intricate interpretive or quantitative issues in the pre -litigation and litigation phases of the Magistrates Courts, Higher Courts, the SCA and the Constitutional Court, where applicable.
• To enter into settlement negotiations with taxpayers and their representatives.
• Analyse and make recommendations about improvements to specialist systems, procedures and associated area's practice.
• Analyse and make recommendations about improvements to specialist systems, procedures and associated area's practice.
• Develop a single practice area in alignment with operational activity and procedural frameworks and ensure tactical implementation.
• Draw on own technical or professional expertise, knowledge and experience to identify and recommend tactical solutions to defined problems in practices.
• Integrate business information, compare, analyse and produce reports to identify trends, discrepancies and inconsistencies for decision making purposes.
• Optimise goal achievement through tactical strategy implementation and optimisation of practises, processes and systems across an internal value chain.
• Plan for value-added, continuous practice and system improvements to deliver on objectives to enhance tactical implementation and excellence.
• Proactively identify interconnected problems, determine its impact and use to develop best fit alternatives, best practice implementation solutions.
• Translate top-down policy in relation to own practice area and communicate impact to relevant stakeholders.
• Contribute to the optimum utilisation of org. resources, advising on effective planning and development of area of specialisation resource plans.
• Recommend changes to optimise processes, systems, practice areas and associate procedures and execute the implementation of change and innovation 

Governance

• Develop and/or align governance and compliance policies for own practice area to identify and manage risk exposure liability. 

People

• Integrate new knowledge and transfer of skills attained through formal and informal learning opportunities in the execution of your job

Finance

• Implement and monitor financial control, management of costs and corporate governance in area of specialisation.

Client

• Develop & ensure implementation of a practice that builds service delivery excellence & encourage others to provide exceptional stakeholder service.
• Participate in the specialist practice community and contribute positively to organisation knowledge management.
• Provide authoritative, specialist expertise and advice to internal and external stakeholders.

Behavioural competencies

• Accountability
• Analytical Thinking
• Attention to Detail
• Commitment to Continuous Learning
• Conceptual Ability
• Fairness and Transparency
• Honesty and Integrity
• Organisational Awareness
• Problem Solving and Analysis
• Respect
• Trust

Technical competencies

• Business Knowledge
• Court Processes and Procedures
• Data Collection and Analysis
• Efficiency improvement
• Functional Policies and Procedures
• Legal Advisory and Interpretation
• Legal Compliance
• Legal Knowledge and knowledge of ethics
• Legal Writing Skills
• Reporting and Interpretation

Deadline:13th February,2026