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- Do I need to submit a tax return?
- Salaried tax payers
- Provisional tax
- Independent contractors
- Small business (sole proprietors)
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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On 20 June 2019, President Cyril Ramaphosa delivered his first State of the Nation Address (SONA) of the sixth parliament, and for the first time in years, we witnessed an uninterrupted SONA. And that is not the only first. For the first time, the SONA cost almost R2m, a staggering 47% lower than the cost of SONA 2018 and the lowest in five years.
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You may have heard the recent announcement from SARS that certain taxpayers who earn less than R500 000 per year don’t need to submit a tax return. However, this only applies under very specific conditions so it is extremely important to understand these fully if you think you may be affected. You can read all about this rule here.
This year SARS are taking things one step further. They ...
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At TaxTim we receive many questions from taxpayers who pay medical aid for dependent family members and who want to know if they can claim for this in their tax return.
When paying medical aid contributions for a ‘financial dependent’ the medical scheme fees tax credit applies in respect of fees paid by the person to a medical scheme. This means that the person who is paying the medical aid will receive the medical tax credits, and not the dependent/member of the medical aid.
Who is a ‘dependent’?...
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Too often, taxpayers rush when completing their tax return, and then they miss out on some expenses they are eligible to claim. Don’t overpay tax by overlooking these seven common tax breaks.
Contributions towards a Retirement Annuity
Your contributions towards retirement funds are deductible for tax up to a limit of 27,5% of the greater of your taxable income or remuneration (to a maximum of R350,000 per year). This limit applies to the total contributions you make to any Pension, Provident or Retirement Annuity (RA) fund during the year...
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Usually SARS issued an immediate assessment, however sometimes they do need to do a further manual check on their side. Often the reason for this is one of the following:
TaxTim and SARS use all the financial information you provide to work out the most accurate estimate of your potential refund (or tax liability) for the current tax season. However, there may be some information we don’t have access to, or information from prior years we don’t know about, that won’t be included in the estimate of your tax refund or tax liability.
Just like the SARS eFiling tax calculator, TaxTim doesn’t take into account provisional tax payments, unpaid penalties, carry-over amounts from previous years and assessed losses...
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Our helpdesk receives hundreds of questions from commission earners about how their tax is calculated. Many are also confused about which expenses they can claim. Hopefully our FAQ will help other taxpayers who might be puzzling over the same issues.
1. I have a salary and earn a small commission; can I claim for my travel to and from work every day? (The commission is based on the sales that my team makes telephonically per month).
Should the commiss...
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You may have seen the latest announcement by the SARS commissioner to increase the qualifying threshold for certain taxpayers to submit a tax return from R350 000 to R500 000.
However as with all previous years, this only applies to certain taxpayers and so it is very important to check if you are one of these.
The threshold applies to you only if you meet ALL of the criteria below:
By now you would have seen the latest announcement by the SARS commissioner to increase the qualifying threshold for certain taxpayers
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There are times when the call centre agent from SARS is unable to resolve your issue and you need to reach out to a more senior person at SARS.
You can request to speak to a team leader / operations manager or the branch / call centre manager and they should be able to assist you. Always remember to note down the case number for your call. If however, you're not satisfied with the outcome of the issue, you can lodge a formal complaint with an agent at a SARS branch or on eFiling (if y...
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This week we zoom into Wear and Tear also commonly known as Depreciation. Below we've covered some of the top questions we've received from our Helpdesk. Take a quick read through our Q&As and see how your pressing depreciation questions can potentially be solved.
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It’s that time of the year again and employers are issuing their employees IRP5s for the tax year. An IRP5 is a tax certificate which shows the total employment income that you earned for the tax year, the total employment related deductions that were taken from your income and paid over to either a retirement fund (pension, provident or retirement annuity fund) or a medical aid and the total tax (PAYE, UIF and SDL) that you paid...
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If you are an Uber driver, you use your own vehicle/s to generate your income and you determine your own working hours, you will be treated as being self-employed (i.e. an independent contractor) for tax purposes.
Since you do not earn a salary, you should be registered as a provisional taxpayer with SARS.
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From our numerous interactions with small business owners, it seems that many draw up the company’s financial statements by themselves, without engaging the services of a professional. Many don’t use accounting software but opt for a simple excel spreadsheet instead. Although this is cost-effective, it can be a daunting task, particularly for those with a sketchy (or non-existent) accounting background.
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Below we take a look at Capital Gains Tax, particularly relating to the primary residence exclusion. What we’ve covered are some of the most pressing questions asked by our users on our help-desk. Take a few minutes to read the Q&As. Hopefully what has been unpacked in these Q&As will benefit and assist you with any uncertainties you might have experienced regarding this topic.
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Flexible employment is becoming increasingly popular, many taxpayers spend some (or all) of their time working from home. If certain conditions are met, taxpayers are allowed to claim a portion of their office running costs as a tax deduction on their tax return. However, please note that SARS usually flags these returns for audit. If you do work from a home, take a read of our home office blog and also check out our handy decision tree to make 100% sure you are claiming this expense correctly.
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Surely most of us love to travel, but traveling for business purposes is no fun when it comes to completing your tax return.
SARS has some rather onerous requirements, but as long as you know what you need, submitting your documents to SARS should be plain sailing.
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It's always wonderful to win a prize or a competition – however, many people don’t realise there may be tax consequences attached.
This week we thought it would be helpful to remind you what to look out for, should you be the lucky recipient of one of the below:
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We receive many relevant questions from our users about what they can claim as a tax deduction if they or one of their dependants suffers from a disability. This week, we will focus on this issue and hopefully help other taxpayers out there who may have the same questions.
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This week we received some questions from our users on retirement fund contributions and the laws that govern it. We hope that this helps you as you start gathering your documents for the new tax season.
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If you own a rental property, then this week’s top questions are specifically for you! Read on to find out more.
1. We paid off our home loan 5 years ago - nil balance due. However, we will have the loan available to borrow from as the term of the loan is not complete (we still have 90 months left).
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Read on to see this week’s top five burning questions received to our Helpdesk this past week. Hopefully this helps you too as we once again shed light on some common tax issues.
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In 2017, National Treasury announced that there would be changes to the Foreign Employment income Exemption. These changes were intended to target those South Africans working overseas on expat contracts, who had not formally emigrated and were intending to return ‘home’ to SA at a later stage. The proposed amendments would have seen South Africans working overseas in lo...
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