The South African Revenue Service (SARS) says that individual taxpayers have filed more than two million tax returns so far this tax season. This compares favourably with the 1.8 million returns submitted in the same period last year, it says.
Of the two million tax returns filed so far, just over one million were filed via eFiling and 936 041 were filed electronically at SARS branches. Only 3 843 paper returns have been filed.
Don’t become complacent if you have not yet filed your tax return, because the deadline for doing so – if you plan to file via eFiling or electronically a SARS branch – is Friday, November 22.
If you plan to submit a paper return, you must do so by Friday, September 27.
If you are a provisional taxpayer and you plan to file your return electronically, you can file it as late as Friday, January 31 next year.
If you are a provisional taxpayer, the deadline for your first provisional tax return and payment is Friday, August 30.
You must estimate your full income and the full tax that you will have to pay on it for the current tax year, and then pay half the tax by August 30 and the other half by the end of February.
Coinciding with the start of the tax season this year was a new requirement for tax practitioners to register with a controlling body or an association with a code of conduct and disciplinary procedures for members who contravene the code, and that requires members to have certain qualifications and standard of education and participate in ongoing professional development.
SARS says so far, 2 671 tax practitioners have completed new registrations, and 10 515 practitioners have updated their registrations. It was estimated by some controlling bodies that, at the end of last year, some 17 000 tax practitioners out of 34 000 were not registered with a controlling body.