Yes it is tax season again. We have noted that SARS appears to be misleading tax payers again into believing that doing your own tax returns is EASY. While SARS does a pretty good job at making it easy to submit a tax return. Submitting a correctly completed tax return is entirely different. We have a number of clients approach us after filing their own return and receiving an adverse assessment or an audit / tax query. Consider the following before you press that submit button, you are affirming that everything on your return is correct and in the correct place on the return. If not SARS can penalise you heavily if they deem you to have intentionally misrepresented the facts. If the assessment received from SARS is adverse, SARS still has the PAY NOW ARGUE LATER policy. Trust me we have seen some horrific things when SARS gets it wrong and still gets the money via an IT88. Using a qualified tax consultant is worth it, SARS has not reduced the size of the Income Tax Act, in fact they have added a new act to this in the form of the Tax Administration Bill (TAB).
Please note that tax returns are due as follows:
- Manual Tax returns 28 Sept 2012
- Electronic Tax returns for Non Provisional Tax Payers 23 November 2012
- Provisional Tax Payers 31 January 2013.