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. Often the reason for this is one of the following:

1. They are missing an IRP5/IT3a due to you having transferred a lumpsum between any retirement funds. For example if you changed jobs during the year or withdrew your lumpsum from a Pension/Provident or Retirement Annuity Fund then you should have been issued an IRP5/IT3a;
2. Sometimes your employer will have moved the company retirement fund to another fund manager in order to better your investment. When this happens an IRP5/IT3a should be generated as well, or a tax directive is sent to SARS and the company and SARS need to match this to each other’s records. This is nothing to worry about on your end.
3. One other reason for a delayed assessment could be that you have an assessed loss on your rental or small business activities which SARS needs to manually verify. In this case, there is nothing you can do except wait patiently for SARS to finalise their manual processes.

For reasons 1 and 2 above, locate this IRP5/IT3a and either send it onto us via the Helpdesk or you can log onto SARS eFiling and follow these steps:

1. Click Returns
2. Click Returns History on the left hand side
3. Select the year you have just filed for
4. Add an IRP5 to the Standard Wizard
5. Scroll down and add the details from this IRP5 and resubmit.

This should clear up the issue, if it does not then SARS would still need to do a few more checks, but in either event there is nothing to worry about at all. If you are due a refund you will still be paid.