Mad rush as Sars deadline nears

Cape Town - Long queues comprising hundreds of people, still waiting to submit their tax returns before the deadline on Friday, stood outside the offices of the South African Revenue Services (Sars) in the Pretoria CBD on Wednesday.

This was also the case at various other Sars offices across the country, said Sars spokesperson, Adrian Lackay, on Wednesday.

"Since July this year, we've already received tax returns from 3.2 million tax payers, but most people wait until shortly before the deadline to submit their returns - so long queues start forming in the last week."

He said the number of tax returns still outstanding is still unknown. This will become clear once the deadline has passed and Sars starts issuing fines to those who failed to submit their returns in time.

Tax payers who are guilty of doing so, should expect stern action and in some cases large fines, said Lackay.

"There is no fixed fine for each late submission of a tax return. People will be fined individually for the amount of returns outstanding, as well as for the amount of outstanding tax."

Thus if you haven't submitted your returns for over a year and you owe Sars a large amount of tax, you should expect a large fine.

All Sars offices have extended their office hours for Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. They are open from 07:00 to 18:00 to assist people with their tax returns.

Sars' national call centre will be available on Thursday and Friday evening until 20:00.

"People should keep in mind how many calls we receive, and understand that they'll simply have to be patient," said Lackay.

On Monday the staff at this call centre answered 47 595 calls altogether. Most of these concerned enquiries regarding the correct use of e-Filing - the electronic submission of tax returns.

Lackay said fines will be issued from Monday to people who haven't submitted their returns.

Although the recession has had a clear impact especially on the amount of VAT received by Sars, thus far, more people have submitted their tax returns than during the same period last year.

"We'll only know after November 30 the exact number of people whose returns are still outstanding, and what effect the recession has had on tax returns this year."

- Beeld