Tax dispute process improved: Sars

TAXPAYERS who disagree with Sars on any matter – whether it is income tax or VAT – will welcome changes to the service’s dispute management process which were introduced last week.

This is according to Ilsa Groenewald, associate director for tax at the Durban office of international audit, tax and advisory firm, BDO South Africa.

“Now, if taxpayers are aggrieved by an assessment, they or their tax practitioners can make an online request for Sars’ reasons for the assessment,” Groenewald said.

The new dispute management process only applies to personal income tax, company income tax and VAT, Groenewald said. She explained that a huge advantage of the new process is that as soon as the system identifies that a valid Request for Reasons has been submitted an automated extension will be granted.

Another significant benefit to taxpayers is that they are now able to submit a Request for Reasons, Notice of Objection (NOO) or Notice of Appeal (NOA) after the period prescribed by the dispute resolution rules had lapsed.

“Prior to the introduction of the new separate workflow, the condonation process was included in the actual dispute process,” Groenewald said.

“This meant that taxpayers or their tax practitioners found it very difficult to determine the next step after their ori- ginal objection or appeal was not successful.

“The new automated process allows Sars to attend to the request for late submission before the dispute or Request for Reasons case can be created,” she said.

“This means that, should a late submission of NOO or NOA be submitted to Sars, the taxpayer or tax practitioner will be prompted to provide reasons for the late submission.

“The new process will inform the taxpayer upfront that the submission is late instead of classifying the dispute as invalid,” Groenewald said.

For more information call the Sars contact centre at 0800 007 277.