Sars: Firms have to hurry up

Johannesburg - Employers have only two weeks left to submit their 2009 PAYE reconciliations to the SA Revenue Service (Sars).

"With only 10 working days until the 30 May deadline, the majority of employers have yet to submit their reconciliation and copies of employee tax certificates," Sars said in a statement on Monday.

By last Friday, fewer than 45 000 reconciliations and only 2.5m employee tax certificates had been received, Sars said.

"This is far below Sars projections based on last year's experience."

According to Sars, past experience had shown if employers waited until the last minute, they put pressure on the Sars systems at branches and call centres which, in turn, caused frustration amongst taxpayers.

Last year over 85% of submissions were done electronically using the software specially designed by Sars to simplify the process. "Employers who fail to submit their PAYE reconciliations and employee tax certificates to Sars by the deadline face severe penalties of up to 10% of the total amount of employees' tax deducted during the 2009 year of assessment," Sars said.

These employers would also be preventing their employees from receiving their income tax returns timeously once the tax season for individuals began on July 1, Sars added.

Sars said it used the information supplied by employers to pre-complete employees' income tax returns. This simplified the income tax return process and sped up the issuing of refunds (where applicable).

- Sapa