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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From 1 July to 4 July, SARS aims to issue auto-assessments to taxpayers who are due a refund.
The rest will be issued in batches up to 24 July.
Timing is Everything
If you receive an auto-assessment, you will have just 40 working days to request a tax return on TaxTim (or eFiling), complete and submit it. If you take no action within the ...
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The 2022 filing season opens on 1 July. Tick tock. That’s just around the corner.
It is important to be aware that the season is shorter than prior years. This means that SARS are giving you less time to file your return.
Important Filing Deadlines
24 October 2022: non-provisional taxpayer (i.e. salaried employees)
23 January 2023: provisional taxpayer (i.e self-employed, rental earners, freelancers, etc)
Auto-Assess...
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SARS is warning that those who fail to submit their tax return on time, will face harsh penalties. The period of leeway which applied to 2021 has now passed.
SARS announced a change to their legislation in December 2021 whereby they would levy administrative penalties to taxpayers who missed the filing deadline for one or more tax returns. Prior to this change, taxpayers only paid penalties when two or more returns were outstanding.
As a...
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The cement is all used up and the bricks have been laid exactly where they need to be. A huge sigh of relief because… finally, construction and renovations are complete! And, just when you thought the worry was over, you realise that the differences between the building allowance and renovations aren’t clear to you. “Aren’t they all the same?” is the question lingering in your head. Don't fret, below is a breakdown of the exact clarity you’re looking for. ...
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As a nation, South Africa does rather poorly on the savings front. With the majority living near or below the breadline, there’s not much to save when you’re more concerned with just getting through the month. Our high levels of consumer-debt, combined with little in the way of personal savings, means we become financial burdens on the government in the long-run...
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When pursuing a business activity, trade or renting out a property, you’re no doubt doing so to make some money, but the reality for self-starters
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Our Helpdesk receives lots of questions from home sellers who rented out their primary residence for some of the
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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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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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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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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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There are various types of taxes with their own special return forms and deadlines.
SARS recently announced the 2022 tax season dates:
01 July 2022 to 24 October 2022: individual (non-provisional) taxpayers
01 July 2022 to 23 January 2023: 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 2022.
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.
Here are the top 5 reasons why you should not skip filing your tax return this season:
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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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IRP5 documents come in all sorts of formats. Luckily there are only a handful of companies that produce IRP5s, so most of them follow a similar format.
Click on the format that matches your IRP5 below and we will show you where to find all the amounts you need for your tax return.
OPTION 1: SARS format 
...
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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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The Public Servants Association (PSA) served SARS with a notice of strike action on Friday, 13 May 2022. The strike is due to take place on Wednesday, 25 May 2022.
The union is demanding a CPI plus 7% across the board, while the National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union (NEHAWU) demands an increase of 11.5%. The unions and SARS hit a deadlock as SARS unashamedly made a final offer of a 0% increase.
If there is no resolution at the Com...
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According to SARS commissioner Edward Kieswetter, some South Africans who came into money were eager to “display their wealth”, giving cause for SARS to look into the income of these individuals.
In many cases, SARS found that there was a major disconnect between the income that was being declared and the type of lifestyle that these individuals were leading, according to third-party data. These include social media platforms.
As we already know, people are often i...
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For months, SARS has been clear about its plan to clamp down on crypto investors. While many may be under the impression that crypto is going under the radar, SARS is firmly taking the position that it is not.
With luxury audits being the order of the day, SARS is continuously looking into those who live luxurious lifestyles, particular those who own luxury cars and crypto assets, without declaring their income to the revenue service.
In many cases, this income pertains to the...
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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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Ensure you have a tax number & eFiling profile
If you have not registered for SARS eFiling or you don't have a tax number don’t worry, SARS has made things a lot easier this year.
Getting a tax number is now as easy as registering on SARS eFiling. Simply click here and if you don’t have a personal income tax number yet, SARS will automatically issue ...
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You’ve been up since 4am in order to catch yet another red-eye flight for a 9am business meeting - 1,400km away - and you’re already onto your third coffee by the time you board the plane.
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Once you’ve completed filing your tax return, it’s possible to find that instead of getting money back
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Let’s face it, SARS didn’t make it easy for taxpayers to claim their home office expenses this past tax season. We can’t blame them really - being faced with millions of newbie work-from-homers, they had to weed out the legitimate claims from the chancers.
At the start of the season, they made it clear that they would only allow claims for taxpayers who had a separate office at home, set up specifically for their work, which was used by them alone. The office could n...
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