The South African Revenue Service (Sars) has revealed that 1.6 million taxpayers have already received refunds worth over R10-billion in arrears to SARS.
This comes after the Sars filing season for 2024 commenced on Monday and will run until October 21 and 20 January 2025 for non-provisional and provisional taxpayers, respectively.
Millions of taxpayers nationwide have already begun to file their tax returns.
Edward Kieswetter, the Sars commissioner, said that 5 million taxpayers have experienced their auto-assessment. This with 99.13% of them accepting the outcome without making any changes.
Refunds paid to 1.6 million of the auto-assessed population
“Refunds of about R10-billion to 1.6 million of the auto-assessed population have been paid thus far. With an average refund of R5,900,” said Kieswetter.
Kieswetter stated that by the end of January, roughly, they want to have issued over 8 million assessments for the 2024 tax year alone. That is for both provisional and non-provisional taxpayers.
“And that is besides prior-year tax returns that taxpayers will thankfully submit to ensure that they are compliant. Of the 8 million, as I said, over 5 million of these will have been auto-assessed. Which means that taxpayers would have had to do nothing.
“We would have done the work for them as a commitment to providing a seamless experience for individual taxpayers,” said Kieswetter.
He continued by saying that in the last two weeks, they have engaged in over 16 million digital exchanges with taxpayers. That was done with an average of 1 million users every day. On Monday, those engagements peaked at over 1.9 million.
During a media briefing on Tuesday in Cape Town, Kieswetter provided an update on the filing procedure. He stated that employers have an obligation to inform their staff members about the IRP5s that are sent to them.
Urged employers to assist employees
“We strongly urge employers to assist their own employees when issuing employee tax certificates. This is to enable them to understand what these are about and what to do with it.
“Employers are also requested not to send work seekers to come to Sars and register as a pre-condition for being interviewed. This is an unnecessary burden on individuals, many of whom are already struggling financially,” he added.
On safety, Kieswetter said they direct suspicious taxpayers for further verification, especially if they suspect fraud.
“Last year alone, this fraud detection capability prevented almost 100 billion impermissible PIT and VAT refunds from being paid out and lost to the fiscus.”
He suggested that taxpayers make use of their online filing processes, like their website or their mobi.app.
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