I received a letter from SARS yesterday informing me that the business account is in credit to the tune of about R11,000 due to overpayment of PAYE and SDL from ( ... wait for it ...) 2004!

They now want me to kindly explain (bold and underlined) the reason for the over/additional payments and to submit the relevant documentation in order to validate (bold and underlined) the credit/s.

Proof of payment required is copies of the front and reverse sides of each cheque.

This was way before my time and the staff who dealt with it have long moved on. There might well be records held somewhere else, but my archives only goes back as far as 2006.

Do you think they do this on purpose?