Tax season opened on the 1st of July 2021 for South African taxpayers submitting their tax returns for the year ending on 28 February 2021. But due to the recent stage 4 lockdown SARS branches will remain closed for the next six weeks and South African taxpayers will be, for the first time, dealing with a completely virtual tax filing season.
Hands off, gloves on!
Edward Kieswetter, SARS Commissioner had discouraged any face-to-face appointment at branch offices and has said that SARS is going full steam ahead to migrate taxpayers to the revenue service’s digital platforms. It’s also got its “fighting gloves” on and is improving its capabilities at detecting tax fraud. During the last tax season, SARS managed to prevent undue refunds of R57 billion for all taxes, with R5 billion of these attributed to individuals.
SARS makes some promises
As part of their efficiency drive SARS has promised taxpayers the following:
- Eight out of 10 taxpayers will have an assessed outcome within 5 seconds after the submission of the tax return
- Tax refunds will be paid within 72 hours to seven out of ten taxpayers
- Seven out of ten verification audits will be completed within 21 days
- Being more specific when SARS requires additional information or documentation to complete an assessment
Auto assessments are being rolled out
To speed up the process and effectively take tax submissions into their own hands, SARS will again auto-assess more than 3 million taxpayers based on information received from employers, financial institutions, and other third-party data. So don’t be surprised to find an auto assessment pre-loaded on your profile and ready to accept.
Before doing so, it’s important that you carefully work through it and ensure that your assessment is recorded correctly
The dangers of just pressing submit
While auto assessments may seem the easy route, you could forfeit refunds or other forms of tax relief to you. For example, if you spent much of the last tax year working from home in a sperate work office space you could be eligible for tax relief. Other items that might not have been captured correctly include travel allowances and rental income.
If you do not agree with the auto assessment, we highly recommend that you speak to our tax specialists before accepting or editing any of the information on the return yourself. Give us a call today, we will be more than happy to assist you.