The South African Revenue Service (SARS) wants to remind taxpayers that Friday, 26 November 2010, is the deadline by which the majority of taxpayers in the country must submit their annual income tax return to SARS.
Friday’s deadline will NOT be extended. Taxpayers who fail to meet this deadline will face administrative penalties that accumulate monthly for every month that a return is outstanding.
Non-provisional taxpayers – people whose source of income is a monthly salary – constitute the biggest segment of individual taxpayers in the country.
To date almost 3.2 million returns have been submitted to SARS since the start of Tax Season 2010 on 1 July. Of this total more than 1.7 million returns have been submitted electronically via eFiling while SARS branch offices have assisted more than 1.3 million taxpayers to submit their returns electronically to date.
The smaller segment of provisional taxpayers – people who have additional sources of income such as taxable interest - have until Monday 31 January 2011 to submit their annual income tax return to SARS.
By the end of last week SARS had received about 100 000 more returns than the corresponding period last year (an increase of 3%). For SARS this is a very encouraging trend in that more taxpayers are submitting tax returns early to avoid the last minute rush to SARS offices which has been a regular feature in the pattern of filing during previous years.
SARS has experienced lower volumes of calls to its contact centre this year compared to previous years - down from more than 47 000 calls per day during the last 2 weeks of the 2009 Tax Season to an average of 25 000 calls per day last week.
Based on past experience, however, it can be expected that the volume of calls to the SARS call centre, the number of electronic submissions of SARS eFiling and the number of taxpayers at SARS branch offices will increase strongly during the course of this week.
In Johannesburg, SARS will also extend its points of service to taxpayers as from Wednesday, 24 November 2010. SARS staff will be available to taxpayers at a temporary service point at Beyers Naude Square (previously known as the Library Gardens) in central Johannesburg.
Other points of service outreach across the country include:
• Queenstown Town Hall: 22–26 November 2010
• Mthatha – Maclear Municipal Hall: 24-25 November 2010 and Freedom Square 26 Nov 2010
• Pretoria – outside SARS Van der Walt Street branch office: 22–26 November
• Rustenburg – Thabazimbi Library: 25 November 2010
• Richards Bay Civic Centre: 24–26 November 2010
• Port Shepstone South Coast Mall: 24–26 November 2010
• Newcastle Town Hall: 24-26 November 2010
• Ladysmith Oval Checkers: 24–26 November 2010
• Kokstad Library: 24–26 November 2010
• Harrismith Library: 22–26 November 2010
• Kimberley Rhodesdene Mall: 24–26 November 2010
• Kuruman - Kuruman Library: 22–26 November 2010
Source: South African Revenue Service
