The South African Revenue Services (SARS) has announced that taxpayers will be able to file their tax returns from 1 July 2022.
SARS said that the other important dates that taxpayers should be aware of the following deadlines:
- For companies, within 12 months of their financial year-ends;
- For all other taxpayers – including natural persons, trusts, institutions, boards and other bodies:
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- On or before 24 October 2022 if the return is submitted manually or with the assistance of a SARS official at one of SARS’s offices, or for a non-provisional taxpayer who is filing via SARS’s eFiling platform;
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- On or before 23 January 2023 for provisional taxpayers using eFiling;
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- Where accounts are accepted by the Commissioner in terms of section 66(13A) of the Income Tax Act in respect of the whole or portion of a taxpayer’s income, which are drawn to a date after 28 February 2022 but on or before 30 September 2022, within six months from the date to which such accounts are drawn.
“Taxpayers should note the shortened time frames to submit their returns and prepare for these submissions sooner rather than later,” said Joon Chong, partner at Webber Wentzel.
“SARS will continue to auto-assess individuals in the auto-assessment population, based on third-party data received from employers, financial institutions, medical schemes, and retirement fund administrators. These taxpayers will receive an SMS from SARS that they have a tax return pre-populated by SARS on eFiling or the SARS MobiApp.”
These taxpayers will need to ‘accept’ or ‘edit’ and submit the auto-assessments by 24 October 2022 if they are individual non-provisional taxpayers, said Webber Wentzel. Notably, this due date for the 2022 filing season is a month earlier than the equivalent due date for the 2021 filing season (23 November 2021), it said.
“Individuals who are auto-assessed but do not accept, edit or submit their auto-assessments will receive an estimated assessment from SARS which is not subject to objection and appeal. “We expect that the same penalty rules for auto-assessments in the 2021 filing season should apply for the 2022 filing season,” said Chong.
“An individual who does not agree with the estimated assessment can file an accurate ITR12 tax return within 40 business days of the date of the estimated assessment. This return will be late and subject to normal late submission admin penalties and interest. The late submission admin penalty is imposed monthly up to 35 months – if SARS has the address of the taxpayer.”
The monthly penalty ranges from R250 to R 16,000 a month, depending on the assessed loss or taxable income of the taxpayer for the year prior to the year being assessed, said Webber Wentzel.
Credit: Courtesy of our friends at businesstech.co.za
