The South African Revenue Service (SARS) is aware of some of the problems experienced by taxpayers when filing their tax returns online and is working on fixing the issues.
According to a media statement released by SARS, the problems arise when taxpayers save their income tax return, and immediately re-open it and press the tax calculate button before the form has fully rendered.
“The problem is aggravated when tax payers click multiple times as they try to view their return. SARS will be putting in a fix where all buttons, including the calculate button, will be greyed while the form is still loading. SARS will also limit the clicks on each button to one,” read the statement.
The Revenue Service thanked early filers for flagging these problems, and also apologised for the inconvenience caused.
The tax filing season started on Monday, 1 July, and all tax payers were encouraged to submit their income tax returns via eFiling.
Taxpayers who do not meet the following criteria do not need to submit a tax return:
*Their total employment income for the year before tax is not more than R500 000
*They only receive employment income from one employer for the full tax year
*They have no other form of income (e.g. car allowance, business income, and rental income, taxable interest or income from another job)
*They don’t have any additional allowable tax-related deductions to claim (e.g. medical expenses, retirement annuity contributions and travel expenses).
Branch filing closes on 31 October 2019, eFiling closes on 4 December 2019 and provisional taxpayers have until 31 January 2020 to file via eFiling.
