Deadline to submit individual tax return

TAXPAYERS have until close of business on Wednesday, October 31, to file their personal income tax returns.

The deadline applies to non-provisional taxpayers and for those provisional taxpayers who opt to file at a branch. Provisional taxpayers using e-filing have until January 31, 2019, to file.

eFiling has experienced 99.7% uptime during tax season and is geared to receive the large volumes of returns that can easily spike to 150 000 submissions daily when tax season hits its last two days.

The Sars contact centre is available from 8am to 6pm to assist taxpayers to file online, as well as to field any taxpayer queries on personal income tax returns. Help-You-e-File, a function on eFiling that connects taxpayers to a Sars tax agent, is also available from 8am to 6pm.

Sars has sent reminders to taxpayers who still need to file.

After the deadline, administrative penalties will be applied to late returns ranging between R250 and R15 000. This year, 18 taxpayers were prosecuted for not submitting their tax returns as part of Sars’s outstanding tax return campaign.

Employers are also reminded that the deadline for submissions as part of the Employer Interim Reconciliation period also closes tomorrow. JANINE MQULWANA | SARS