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
Read more →
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...
Read more →
Please read the steps below to update your contact details on your SARS eFilng profile:
1. Go to www.sarsefiling.co.za
2. Please log into your eFiling profile:
3. Click on ...
Read more →
SARS has recently issued a new guide with regards to updating your banking details with them. This was done in order to reduce the risk of refunds being paid into the wrong accounts and also to streamline the process, which has tended to be an onerous one in the past.
Change of bank details can be done:
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...
Read more →
If you left out some documents in your original submission to SARS, don’t panic.
SARS has recently implemented a new process
Read more →
In the Capital Gains section of the annual tax return (ITR12), SARS requires you to insert the relevant asset source code for the item you have sold. However, when you sell financial investments (e.g shares) the financial institution issues an IT3(c) which shows the profit/loss source code (i.e4250/4251) and not the asset source code. This causes confusion for taxpayers, who think th...
Read more →
As part of SARS’ mission to simplify the eFiling system, the Tax Type Transfer process was updated in 2020 for all Tax products in a bid to offer users complete control of their eFiling profiles.
Overall, you can expect to see the following key changes introduced to eFiling from the end of April 2021:
When a Tax Return is filed usually SARS issues an immediate assessment (ITA34), however sometimes they do need to do a further manual check on their side.
Read more →
During the tax year, SARS issued SMS's to taxpayer whom they chose to auto-assess.
Those selected individuals would typically be taxpayers earning fixed salaries without additional allowances. If they did have medical aid and retirement annuity fund contributions, these details would have already been sent to SARS by their service providers, and SARS should have automatically included them in the assessment.
We've received many questions on our help desk where users say that t...
Read more →
If your 2023 individual income tax return was auto-assessed by SARS earlier this year, and you intended to include extra income or expenses/ deductions but missed the deadline, don't be dismayed, there might still be a way to fix things!
Is SARS rejecting your tax return submission and your dispute too?
Have you requested an extension, but SARS granted it for a day before they replied to you? i.e, you asked for an extension till 10 November 2023, but SARS gave you an extension...
Read more →
It seems that dormant companies are on SARS' radar.
If you registered a company with CIPC some time ago and forgot about it, that company could land you in hot water with SARS. Read more to find out what the financial repercussions could be and why you should get a hold on the situation.
A dormant company is classified as a company that has not actively traded for the full year of assessment. Because there is no activity in the compan...
Read more →
With the end of the tax year looming, SARS tax collectors are on high alert to collect taxes and meet their revenue targets.
If you owe SARS, you should be receiving constant reminders to pay your debt. This may be in the form of SMS's, phone calls or even posted letters.
If the debt is unfamiliar or if you are not in agreement with the debt, you can File a dispute with SARS , howe...
Read more →
SARS have recently introduced a new way to track your tax return online via the SARS website.
See TaxTim's step-by-step guide to help you nagivate this new process:
1. Please go to the SARS website www.sars.gov.za click on "Contact Us"
2. Scroll down the page then click o...
Read more →
After you have submitted your supporting documents to SARS, they have 21 working days to review them, assuming all sufficient documents have been received. Once their review is complete, you will either:
Additional Documents Request
If SARS still requires for documents from you, they will either send ...
Read more →
Step 1:
If you have been auto-assessed by SARS, you may see the screen below when you log into SARS eFiling.
Please click on "View".
You may also see this screen:
If you ...
Read more →
We are starting to see some common trends whereby taxpayers’ expenses are disallowed because the documents submitted are falling short of SARS’s requirements. To avoid unnecessary frustration and time wasted in raising disputes, read on to see if any of these areas apply to you.
Travel deduction
In prior years, the submission of a logbook detailing your business mileage used to be sufficient to justify your travel claim. In recent years howev...
Read more →
What is an auto-assessment?
This is an automatic assessment issued by SARS to certain taxpayers.
Read more →
The 2023 filing season opens this year at 8pm on Friday, 7 July. The countdown's on, it's almost here!
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
23 October 2023: non-provisional taxpayer (i.e. salaried employees)
24 January 2024: provisional taxpayer (i.e self-employed, rental earners, freelancers, ...
Read more →
Last year, we noticed that many taxpayers filed their tax returns before the tax season officially began (i.e July). However, doing so caused delays and problems with their tax refunds.
There are only three specific instances where you can file your tax return (ITR12) directly on eFiling before tax season starts:
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 that won’t be included in the estimate of your tax refund or tax liability.
Information from previous tax seasons
Just like the SARS eFiling tax calculator, TaxTim doesn’t take into account provisional tax ...
Read more →
You’ve been diligent with your tax obligations, you’ve paid your PAYE (employees tax) each month without fail, you’ve kept all the supporting documents for your deduction claims and you’ve carefully filled out your tax return, making sure you’ve put all the right amounts in all the right places, against all the right codes. (Pssst, if you used TaxTim to help you complete your tax return, you wouldn’t have had to worry about all the right places and codes because that’s all automated for you)...
Read more →
SARS has given you just 40 working days to submit your tax return. If you received your auto-assessment at the beginning of July, your time to submit has already expired. Auto-assessments issued on 4 July 2022, expired on 30 August 2022. Count your work days carefully. SARS is applying this rule very strictly. If you do nothing, your auto-assessment will very soon become FINAL.
For more on auto-assessments and their deadlines, please read Read more →
Filing a tax return for the first time can be a daunting task. To get you started, we’ve gone back to the basics
Read more →