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SARS ready for SA taxpayers

Johannesburg - The South African Revenue Service's (SARS) electronic tax submission system, which kicks off on Monday, forms part of its enhanced service initiatives to broaden the tax base to 10.5 million from 7 million by 2010.

Individual taxpayers will be able to access and download income tax return forms from www.sarsefiling.co.za.

The forms can be submitted electronically. They can also be printed out and submitted personally at a SARS branch office or mailed to SARS.

Barry Hore, the general manager for strategy and planning at SARS, said submitting electronically made sense.

Hore said: "This is a fully automated process which will effectively ensure that taxpayers receive the outcome of the SARS assessment much faster."

"We want to be in a mode where we continually improve our value proposition and service offering," said SARS commissioner Pravin Gordhan.

Gordhan said the staff has already been trained for the daunting task.

Individual registered taxpayers have to hand in their tax returns to SARS by October 31 this year.

SARS has issued 3.5 million tax return forms since July 16 and 67 000 have already been sent back to it.

There are 7 million registered taxpayers in South Africa. Of this number, individuals comprise 5 million, companies 1,7 million and trusts 300 000.

SARS has introduced a number of changes that are aimed at simplifying the filing experience, including:

  • The tax return forms have been reduced to only two pages for most taxpayers from a bulky 10 pages; and

  • The process of submitting returns and the manner in which SARS will assess returns have also been changed dramatically.

  • All supporting documents such as IRP5s, medical invoices, travel invoices and log books are no longer required.

SARS will from now on source this information from employers and financial institutions. However, SARS requires taxpayers to keep the supporting documents.

Gordhan said: "Our ambition is for everyone who is supposed to be paying tax to do so.

"However, when you try to put people in a straight line, there will always be those who move away from the line.

"Clearly, in every society you will have people that won't comply.

"We are going to exercise strict measures in order to ensure that people comply. SARS will work effortlessly to bring to book those that do not comply."

Edward Kieswetter, chief financial officer for SARS, said the service would use third party information to track down those that do no submit the required information.

This will include employers, retirement annuity payments and banks.

He said SARS could charge defaulters penalties of up to 200% of total tax that was due.

Some cases would also be taken to court, where the offender could be prosecuted.

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