Johannesburg - There will be no extension to the November 20 tax season deadline, the SA Revenue Service (Sars) said.
"Sars has received a number of requests from tax practitioners and their representative associations for an extension to this year's tax season deadline," it said in a statement.
Among the reasons cited was "the unavailability of the eFiling system over the past weekend for the implementation of critical enhancements to ensure the smooth and uninterrupted availability of eFiling over the final two weeks of tax season", Sars added.
It said it had held a meeting on the matter and other concerns on Tuesday with the SA Institute of Chartered Accountants (Saica), the SA Institute of Professional Accountants and the SA Institute of Tax Practitioners (SAIT).
"At this meeting it was explained that the improvements to the eFiling system were intended to enhance accessibility to the system, allowing significantly more concurrent users to access eFiling at any given time in preparation for the final weeks of tax season."
Sars added that eFiling users had been notified well ahead of time of the unavailability of the system.
"It was further discussed that all on-going maintenance and necessary improvements to eFiling were timed to have the least impact on practitioners and taxpayers using the system - being confined daily to the hours between midnight and 04:00 and, when necessary, over weekends when log-ins and submissions are at their lowest."
Sars said submission statistics for tax season 2009 to date showed that only between 3 000 and 6 000 returns were submitted over weekends compared to between 70 000 and 100 000 during the work day week.
"So far more than 2.8 million tax returns have been received by Sars since the start of the filing period in July, marking an increase of 30% compared to the same time last year."
Sars added that general submission trends and the fact that requests for extensions had become the norm in the final weeks of tax season each year had also been discussed.
"In 2008 almost 50% of all returns submitted by the deadline were received in the deadline month.
"Despite a significant improvement in early filing this year, statistics show that South African taxpayers continue to procrastinate."
Sars said the meeting had agreed that there would be no extension to the November 20 deadline.
"Sars has already granted more than three months additional time for provisional taxpayers in good standing with Sars to submit their annual income tax returns.
"These taxpayers, who form the bulk of practitioner clients and whose tax returns are generally more complex, have until 28 February 2010 to submit their returns."
Lethargic clients
Approximately 25% percent of all income tax returns were submitted by provisional taxpayers.
Sars said added that in announcing the introduction of tough new penalties recently it had been made clear that such new penalties would apply from November 23 2009 and would first be implemented in respect of the worst offenders - those taxpayers with outstanding returns for multiple years.
"Sars believes the new penalties and firmer deadlines are necessary to promote compliance and assist tax practitioners in getting delinquent and lethargic clients to submit their documents."
It added that the professional bodies at the meeting had welcomed the delayed implementation of these though new penalties.
"Professional bodies further welcomed the acceptance and announcement of the alternative eFiling date of February 28 2010 for compliant provisional taxpayers," Sars said.
- Sapa