Guidance for Your 2019 Tax Submissions

The 1^st of August 2019 marks the start of the tax filing season for taxpayers who file their returns at a South African Revenue Service branch.  For taxpayers who are registered for eFiling, or who make use of the MobiApp, this process became available from 1 July 2019.

SARS has recently made three key changes, which may affect your tax return:

1. IT3(b) information will be pre-populated on tax returns

IT3(b) data relates to all investment income such as interest and dividends. Going forward, all IT3(b) data will be pre-populated and consolidated onto an individual’s tax return. If there is a query on the pre-populated amount, you will need to manually edit the information and then contact your investment service provider to resolve the query.

Joint account holders will no longer receive a single IT3(b) certificate but rather a separate IT3(b) certificate per joint account owner. Joint account holders who have not specified a preferred investment split, will continue to receive only one IT3(b) tax certificate in the hands of the primary account owner.

2. New tax return threshold

SARS have increased the threshold for certain taxpayers to submit a tax return from R350,000 to R500,000. Individuals are required to submit a tax return if they:

• Earn an income greater than R500,000
• Have two or more sources of taxable income (Salary, rental income, interest etc.)
• Have deductions they want to claim from SARS (Retirement fund contributions, travel expenses)

3. SARS has advised that tax returns for clients with outstanding recognition of transfers (ROT) will not be assessed

A ROT is a document that is required to facilitate a transfer of a life or retirement benefit from one fund or insurer to another. Once a transfer is complete, the receiving fund must submit a ROT on behalf of the client to SARS.

In the case where a ROT has not been submitted or was rejected during the year of assessment, SARS will only assess the tax return of that individual once the ROT has been approved. SARS has indicated that individuals with outstanding ROTs will be notified from 1 July 2019.

Deadline Dates for Tax filings