The time is fast approaching for you to make sure that your tax return is completed and submitted by June 5, 1998.
If you do not believe you will be able to submit your tax return before June 5 you need to ask the South African Revenue Services (SARS) for an extension to submit your return late. You need to be given this approval in writing.
If you don't submit your return by June 5 and you don't have approval to submit it by a later date, SARS will do one of the following:
* If this is the first time you have submitted your return late your assessment will be coded BB. This will act as a warning that in future you will be penalised if you submit your return late. You can regard this as a ''black mark'' on your file;
* If this is the second time you have submitted your return late, you will be charged a penalty equal to the lower of R300 or 15 percent of the taxable income reflected on your return. This is shown as code B on your assessment; and
* If this is the third time your return is late, the penalty will be R600.
These penalties are amounts which are imposed whether you are one day late or one year late.
However, what you must remember is that if you fail to submit your return, and you don't have an extension, SARS will start to chase you fairly quickly.
It will issue a letter of reminder, then a final demand, and finally a summons.
The penalties for not submitting a return at all (where you have taxable income), or for omitting income from the return, can amount to a figure which results in you paying three times the amount of tax that should have been paid. Interest will also be payable (currently at 15 percent a year).
And, deliberate incorrect disclosure on the return or non-submission when you have earned income above the threshold (see below) will mean that SARS can go back as far as it likes in investigating your affairs.
How do you know if you should be submitting a return?
If you are an employee and don't earn any other income, and your remuneration is less than R60 000 a year, then, provided your IRP5 (employees' tax certificate from your employer which indicates the total amount you have earned during the year) reflects that all the tax you have paid is Standard Income Tax on Employees (SITE), you won't need to submit a tax return.
If the IRP5 reflects Pay As You Earn (PAYE) only or in addition to SITE (this might be because you have been given a travel allowance, for example), then you are required to register as a taxpayer and to submit a return.
This may be to your advantage because you will be entitled to claim a deduction for business travel expenditure against the travel allowance reflected on the IRP5.
If you have received or accrued income other than remuneration, for example, interest, rental or trading income, then you probably need to register as a taxpayer and submit a return.
In fact, you may need to register as a provisional taxpayer, where you have to make payments for the tax year on August 31 and February 28, and perhaps on September 30 following the end of the tax year. However, if your income is only interest income and it does not exceed R2 000 it will be tax free.
Each year SARS gazettes that, if a person's taxable income is lower than the tax threshold, that person need not register as a taxpayer. This is because if you did register and submit a return, no tax would be payable.
The amount for the 1998 tax year, which ended on February 28 is R16 921 if you are under 65, and R30 050 if you are over 65. In either case you need not worry about registering as a taxpayer.
I recommend you make sure you're doing the right thing where tax returns are concerned before it starts costing you more money than it need to.