The Commissioner for the South African Revenue Service (Sars), Mr Edward Kieswetter expresses, his sincere gratitude to all taxpayers who interacted with Sars over the past two weeks. This includes those who were part of the Individual Tax Filing Season 2024 that commenced recently and will run until October 21, 2024, and January 20, 2025, for non-provisional and provisional taxpayers, respectively.
Commissioner Kieswetter said: “In line with our strategic intent of developing a tax and Customs system that is based on voluntary compliance, through the synthesis of people, data, and technology, we continue to modernise our systems. We are continuing to work to provide a seamless, empowering, and enabling taxpayer experience, where tax eventually just happens for the millions of South Africans. We are deliberate in making the Filing Season a non-event”.
Nearly 150 million third-party data records were harvested this year, which serves as the building block of the Filing Season. Processing this volume of Big Data through the application of artificial intelligence and enhanced machine learning algorithms enables SARS to automatically assess a larger number of taxpayers, pre-populate more returns, improve the integrity of taxpayer declarations, and simplify the taxpayer experience.
In the first 14 days, well over 5 million taxpayers experienced our Auto Assessment, with 99.13% of them accepting the outcome without making any changes. Refunds of about R10 billion to 1.6 million of the auto-assessed population have been paid thus far with an average refund of R5900.00.
“We completed these annual returns and tax assessments while, simultaneously, running each assessment outcome through our compliance risk and tax fraud detection capability. All this is possible because of the investment that we have been able to make in increasing and expanding the use of third-party data in the past few years. Last year, this work alone added R100 billion to the fiscus through the prevention of impermissible refunds. Despite these successes, I believe that we can do so much more,” Commissioner Kieswetter said.
After the opening of Filing Season yesterday, 15 July 2024, 191 000 returns have been filed with 183 000 (9%) filed digitally through eFiling and MobiApp while 7 700 (3%) were filed through our Taxpayer Service Centres. Of which 90% were processed within 5 seconds.
Sars is continuing to expand its offering of self-service educational content through the Sars TV YouTube Channel and the Sars website to provide informative and easily accessible customised clarity to taxpayers. “We have seen some one million users interacting with this content over the past two weeks, thereby fulfilling our strategic objective of providing certainty and clarity to taxpayers,” he continued.
Pursuant to Sars’ Vision 2024 of building a SMART, MODERN Sars with unquestionable integrity, we are modernising our digital platforms through several enhancements and additional functionalities to enable taxpayers to comply with their obligations simply, easily, and seamlessly from anywhere.
Sars’ digital platforms have seen 16 million interactions in the past two weeks through Sars’ eFiling, the MobiApp, Lwazi Chatbot, Help-You-eFile, Sars Online Query System, USSD service (non-smartphones), social media, and our newly launched WhatsApp channel (three days old), thus minimising, as far as possible, the need for a taxpayer to visit or call our offices. The Sars Online Service is an easy-to-use online platform that can be accessed via Sars’ website (https://tools.sars.gov.za/soqs). WhatsApp can be accessed by saving the Sars WhatsApp number (0800 11 77) and sending a message and following the prompts. There is no need to visit a Sars branch.
Before visiting a Sars Office, first try our self-service channels:
Visit Sars eFiling on our website www.secure.sarsefiling.co.za
Download the Sars Mobi app from the Google Play or Apple Stores
Call the USSD number - *134*7277# to enquire about their status and other details
Chat with SARS on the WhatsApp number - 0800 11 7277
Access the Sars On-line Query System (SOQS) on our website www.sars.gov.za
Visit our social media pages on Facebook, LinkedIn, SARS TV – YouTube and X (Twitter) where you will find self-help videos and step by step guides.
Call our Contact Centre and select Help You eFile ahead of going through to a Service Consultant
Make an appointment if all else seems to fail for a virtual, telephonic engagement or in-person appointment at our Taxpayer Service Centre
As an absolute last resort we will never turn a taxpayer away should they show up at our Taxpayer Service Centres, provided they are prepared to wait.
These self-service digital platforms enable taxpayers to:
- Submit a payment allocation query;
- Request their tax reference number;
- Submit supporting documents if SARS asked them to do so;
- Report a new estate case;
- Update a registered representative;
- Request their tax compliance status;
- Verify their tax compliance status; and
- Check if they are due for Auto Assessment
“Despite the availability of digital platforms, Sars has also readied our Taxpayer Service Centres and Service Consultants to serve taxpayers who require assistance in complying with their obligations through any of its available service channels — telephonic engagements, virtual or in-person appointments, self-service terminals at Sars offices, and Mobile Tax Units deployed in designated communities and outlying areas. We have serviced 330 000 taxpayers in the last two weeks,” he said.
Sars is also continuing to enhance its capacity to detect and deter non-compliance by leveraging the increased and expanded use of both Sars and third-party data, focusing on non-compliance phenomena such as non-declaration and under-declaration for those taxpayers who negligently, deliberately, aggressively, or criminally do not comply.
Commissioner Kieswetter warned taxpayers against scams that are increasing. He said: “Sars will never ask taxpayers to give their banking or credit cards details nor does it operate any links that ask taxpayers to log in their details into a hyperlink.” He said that Sars only uses the website (www.sars.gov.za) and no other address. He called on taxpayers to be extra vigilant and to access the Sars website to verify the authenticity of any information of which they are suspicious.
“The next few weeks will be a busy period for Sars offices as we will be engaging with and servicing taxpayers throughout the country. We understand that some taxpayers are eager to file their returns, and most are expecting or hoping for a refund, as a result. As such, we expect that there may be instances of long queues and waiting times at the onset of the Filing Season. Despite our limited resources and capacity, we are confident in the measures that we have put in place in support of our strategic intent and further progressing towards our a spiration of providing a seamless, empowering, and enabling taxpayer experience, where tax eventually just happens for the majority of South Africans,” he concluded.
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