Pretoria - The South African Revenue Service (Sars) on Monday announced several innovations aimed at making the submission of tax returns simpler and faster.
Finance Minister
Pravin Gordhan and senior Sars officials announced the opening of the 2012 tax season in Pretoria.
South Africans will now be able to do their e-filing through their smartphones and tablet devices.
Sars commissioner
Oupa Magashula said: “What we have done was to redesign e-filing from our side to conform to a tablet and cellphone format so that it is easy to negotiate on a smaller screen.”
Gordhan also took the opportunity to ask South Africans to be honest and declare all their earnings.
An expected 5 million taxpayers are anticipated to file their tax returns by the January deadline.
The minister said paying tax is a patriotic duty which supports the country and less fortunate.
He appealed to taxpayers to be honest and warned there were numerous checks in place to ensure earnings have been entirely declared.
Magashula said about 12 million taxpayers have contributed more than R250bn in the last year, a third of all the revenue.
He said more than half of taxpayers can expect a tax refund within 48 hours of their submission.
In 2011, Sars surpassed the revenue collection target by R2bn.