Taxpayers who are eager to claim a tax refund should note that tax filing season opens on July 1, which means that your return will be available on the eFiling website (www.efiling.gov.za) of the South African Revenue Service (SARS).
If you prefer to procrastinate, you have until Friday, November 21, to file your return electronically, if you are an ordinary taxpayer, or until Friday, January 30, if you are a provisional taxpayer. If you are one of the few people who is still filing a paper return, your return must be in by Friday, September 26.
A new feature this tax season is an “inbox” on the eFiling page that enables you to access all of your correspondence from SARS easily.
This tax season, SARS will not accept a return from tax practitioners who are not registered with both SARS and one of the profession’s controlling bodies, Mark Kingon, the head of business operations at SARS, says.
In additional, only registered tax practitioners will be able to use SARS services dedicated to tax advisers, he says.
Kingon warns against letting anyone use your eFiling log-in, because logging into the site will enable them to access your bank account details.
Once again, SARS agents will be at SARS branches to help you fill in an electronic return. Alternatively, you can ask a SARS agent to help you telephonically or shadow you on the eFiling site. Click on the Help-You-eFile icon on the eFiling page to use this service.
Filling in your return will be much easier if you use Personal Finance’s popular guide to completing your return, which will be published in collaboration with SARS at the end of July.
Although, for most people, the deadline for submitting a return is four-and-a-half months away, it is best not to wait until the last minute, because the eFiling site, SARS branches and the SARS call centre are usually extremely busy in the two weeks before the deadline.
You do not have to submit a return if, in the tax year to the end of February this year, you earned less than R250 000 as salary income before tax from one employer and have no other sources of income (for example, interest or rental income) and no deductions that you want to claim (for example, medical expenses, a travel allowance or retirement annuities).
If you filed your return last year and have forgotten your password, you can reset it by calling the SARS call centre and following a simple procedure. The call centre number is 0800 007 277.