When it comes to tax jargon, most people prefer to bury their heads in the sand instead of trying to understand all the confusing terms that tax practitioners use. Taxpayers just want to do their tax quickly and easily, and if they’re due - receive some money back from SARS. A lot of confusion surrounds the process, but by understanding three simple terms you can make tax season a little bit easier.
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These tips are part of TaxTim's personalised recommendation tool called the Tax Health Score.
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What is an auto-assessment?
This is an automatic assessment issued by SARS to certain taxpayers.
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In order to complete the Medical section of your annual tax return, you will need a tax certificate from your medical scheme (if you contributed to a medical scheme that is!).
This certificate details exactly how much was paid to the medical aid for yourself and your dependents over the course of the tax year (1 March to end Feb). It also details how much money you paid for other medical expenses, such as medicines and doctors expenses, which you claimed for, but your medical aid did NOT cover...
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We receive many questions from taxpayers who are confused as to why they receive an IRP5/IT3a for retirement fund withdrawals or transfers and how to report this (if at all) in their tax return. If this applies to you, read on and let us clarify the issue for you.
IRP5/IT3a for retirement fund withdrawal, resignation or transfer
If you withdraw money or retire from your retirement fund and receive a lumpsum, the fund will have to apply for a tax directive for you and should also issue you an IRP5/IT3a...
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COMPANY LETTERHEAD
Date
Employee's Full Name
Address
To Whom It May Concern,
Subject: Permission to use personal items for work purposes
This letter serves to confirm that _______________________________(Name of employee), ___________________________(ID number) who is employed by our firm ___________________( company name) in the capacity of__________________________(Position) has permission to use the following personal items for work purposes:
Item: 1...
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You may be employed by someone, but for one reason or another- you don't receive an IRP5 and no amount of begging or pleading
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We’re aware that sometimes taxpayers may not understand all of the deductions which appear on the tax return. And because of this, expenses that could have been deducted get missed. To help make things easier for you, we’ve explained some of these less understood tax deductions which may be overlooked by taxpayers. They all appear in the Other Deductions section of the ITR12.
The s11(nA) and s11(nB)
If an employee is in breach of an agreement with their employer, they may be asked to pay back a benefit they received from them e.g bonus, maternity leave benefit, bursary, sign on bonus etc. ...
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COMPANY LETTERHEAD
Date
Employee's Full Name
Address
To Whom It May Concern,
Subject: Permission to work from home
This letter serves to confirm that _______________________________ (Name of employee), _____________________ (ID number) who is employed by our firm ___________________ (Company name) in the capacity of __________________________ (Position) has permission to work from h...
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Filing a tax return for the first time can be a daunting task. To get you started, we’ve gone back to the basics
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SARS have recently become a lot stricter about levying administrative penalties. These are penalties for missing the deadline to submit your tax return. You can read about these recent changes in the law here.
If you have outstanding/un-filed tax returns from prior years, chances are high that SARS will have slapped on administrative penalties.
You may have recentl...
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The 2024 filing season opens this year on Monday, 15 July.
Tihs year, the tax season is even shorter than last year (and last year was shorter than the prior year!). This means that SARS are giving you less time to file your tax return.
Important Filing Deadlines
21 October 2024: salaried employees, who earn no other income (i.e non-provisional taxpayers)
20 January 2025: self-emplo...
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In previous years, it was relatively easy to add a company to your eFiling profile, whether it was an Organization or Tax Practitioner profile.
However, since early last year, SARS has changed the procedure. Now, to add a company to your profile, you need to add a registered representative. In order to do this, you must send a request to SARS along with the following documents each time you want to represent a new company:
Received your IRP5 or IT3(a) but unsure what it all means? Here’s a quick introduction to help you understand this tax document.
Your IRP5 starts with your personal details. While these details won’t override what SARS has on record, it’s important to check them and update any outdated information with your employer.
Your ...
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In order to use TaxTim and import your tax certificates directly from your SARS eFiling profile, you will need to be able to login to your SARS profile.
If you do not remember your eFiling username and password, here is a short guide to request it:
1. Go to SARS eFiling and click "Forgot Username".
What is the definition of tax threshold? Tax thresholds? SARS Threshold.
A Tax threshold is the lower limit of earnings at which tax needs to start being paid. So any income less than the current threshold, would not be taxed.
What is Turnover Tax?
Turnover Tax is a streamlined taxation system designed to simplify tax compliance for small businesses. It replaces several types of taxes—Income Tax, VAT, Provisional Tax, Capital Gains Tax, and Dividends Tax—with a single tax based on turnover...
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Turnover Tax is a simplified tax system only available to sole proprietors, partnerships, companies, or close corporations with a “qualifying turnover” of less than R1m per year. These types of entities are called micro businesses.
As the name implies, Turnover Tax is a type of tax, which is calculated against the turnover of a business, as opposed to a percentage of profit (i.e. income less business expenses) as per usual business tax. This difference reduces the administ...
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The enhanced tax incentive recently introduced by the government, known as Section 12BA, aims to promote private investment in electricity generation from renewable energy sources to help alleviate the energy crisis in the country. This incentive is a temporary enhancement of the existing renewable energy tax incentive found in section 12B of the Income Tax Act.
Below are the key points:
Availability and Duration
The incentive is available from 1 ...
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1. This is the gross base cost of all shares you bought through the institution. You must NOT use this value on your return.
2. This is the base cost i.e the costs attached to the sale of your shares. This amount needs to be entered as the base cost in the capital gains section of your tax return.
3. This is the...
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SARS has reported a rise in eFiling profile hijacking, involving various methods such as altering security details, creating, or modifying taxpayer profiles, and executing SIM swaps.
The hijackers’ objectives are to redirect tax refunds to fraudulent bank accounts, which they are setting up for this purpose. There are certain banks which appear to feature more frequently.
If you are the victim of such profile hacking, you must immediately report this fraud via the
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So, you’ve recently submitted your tax returns and shortly thereafter you receive a message from SARS informing you about admin penalties that have been charged against you. This has most probably come as a shock to you. We’ve been inundated with questions from taxpayers asking about these penalties which have been charged against them. Below we’ve highlighted things you need to know as well as ways in which you can handle these penalties.
When are penalties charged?...
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SARS have recently become a lot stricter with late filers and have changed their rules for administrative penalties. You can read more about these changes here. There used to be some leeway for taxpayers who missed the deadline, but sadly these days are certainly over.
If you received a notification of debt from...
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Please read the steps below to update your contact details on your SARS eFilng profile:
1. Go to www.sarsefiling.co.za
2. Log into your eFiling profile:
3. Click on
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SARS 2024 tax season dates:
The tax season dates are not yet announced. However, based on prior years, they are expected to be the following:
01 July 2024 to 23 October 2024: individual (non-provisional) taxpayers
01 July 2024 to 24 January 2025: provisional taxpayers
If you earn less than R500 000 in a year, and fulfill a series of complicated criteria, you may not have to file a tax return in 2024.
However, we advise you to take GREAT CARE here, and understand your duties properly, because if you don't, you may suffer for it later on....
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Taking a closer look at why taxpayers may be required to pay in tax on pensions or annuities on assessment and how they can avoid a repetition of this each year.
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