Tax season opens Monday, and it’s easier than ever if you go the efiling route

If you are eager to file your tax return, you can do so from Monday, as the South African Revenue Service (SARS) opens this year’s tax filing season on July 1.

If you are a procrastinator, you can take comfort in the fact that the tax deadline for most people is Friday, November 22. If you want to fill in a paper return, you must do so by Friday, September 27; and if you are a provisional taxpayer and plan to file electronically, your deadline is Friday, January 31, next year.

SARS’s message for this tax filing season is that you file “Easily, Honestly and On Time”.

Last year, some 5.66 million returns were submitted – an increase of 16.4 percent over the 2011 tax filing season, SARS says.

Almost everyone is choosing the easier electronic way to file their returns. SARS says 99.86 percent of returns were submitted electronically last year.

SARS expects that, once again, many taxpayers (2.5 million last year) will submit their returns electronically at SARS’s branches across the country. To avoid the queues and long waiting times at the branches, SARS again encourages you to file your return yourself.

The Help-You-eFile service that SARS launched last year will again be available, enabling you to phone the SARS call centre for help while you are eFiling your return. The service has been extended to include help in the submission of IRP6 forms, the tax return for provisional taxpayers.

You can eFile on the internet or via the eFiling Mobisite or MobiApp on your smartphone or tablet.

You can now file an IRP6 and a complex ITR12 tax return on the MobiApp. The application is also available to tax practitioners.

ASSESSMENT

Once you have filed your return, if your tax affairs are straightforward, you will receive the outcome of your assessment almost instantly via an SMS message. Your formal assessment and any audit letters will be sent via the post or email.

SARS says that last year 93 percent of returns were assessed within three seconds, 99.58 percent of returns were assessed within 24 hours, and 94.5 percent of refunds were paid within 72 hours.

During last year’s tax season, 646 559 new taxpayers registered and submitted a return for the first time, SARS says.

And among the returns filed last year were 1.4 million outstanding ones from previous tax years.

SARS says this is “a very encouraging indication that the administrative penalties that SARS imposes for outstanding returns are having the desired effect of improving levels of compliance”.

Penalties are now levied monthly for outstanding returns.

SARS says this year the threshold below which you do not have to file a return has been raised from from R120 000 to R250 000 a year. This means you don’t need to submit a return if your salary for the year before tax is less than R250 000 and:

You earn only a salary and it is paid by only one employer;

You don’t have any other income, such as taxable interest or rent income; and

You don’t have any tax deductions, such as medical expenses, retirement annuity contributions or travel expenses, to claim.

If you are unsure whether or not to submit a return, use the “Wizard on the Tax Season” page of the SARS website, www.sars.gov.za, or call its contact centre on 0800 00 7277.

As in previous years, SARS warns taxpayers to beware of fraudsters who send emails asking for personal, tax, banking and eFiling details. SARS will never ask you for such information in an email.

SARS will also not request banking details over the phone, or via email, SMS or websites, it says.