Sars to make life easy for you
SOLAR panel rebates have ended and NHI taxes are still a long way off, the SA Revenue Service (Sars) said last week.
Speaking to the Independent on Saturday, Sars said at least 55% of all personal income taxpayers would receive auto-assessments this year.
Spokesperson Siphithi Sibeko said about 4.5 million auto-assessments would be issued, in a bid to make the process as seamless as possible.
“If the auto-assessment says, based on the information we have, Sars owes you this, then within 72 hours the money will be in your account. And ... if you owe Sars, you have up until the end of the filing season to be able to settle what you owe Sars,” Sibeko said.
Last week, Sars announced that the tax season would start on July 15 and that individual taxpayers would have until October 21 to submit returns.
Provisional taxpayers have until January 20 to submit their documents, while trusts have between September 16 and January 20 to do theirs.
Sibeko said digitisation made it easier for people to interact with Sars, and the revenue service would automatically collect data and autoassess those whose with uncomplicated tax affairs. “Sars operates on the basis that it has access to your medical aid, to your bank, it has access to an employer, to everyone. So Sars could almost formulate, to a greater extent, almost all your tax affairs,” he said.
However, he said, Sars would not have captured other information like additional kilometres and top-up medical claims which taxpayers could add to the returns via efiling.
Sibeko added that the “solar dispensation” of R15 000 had ended and this was the last tax season in which to claim such rebates, while NHI taxes were still “way, way down the line”.