Is your tax properly in order?
Are you sure your tax affairs are in order?
The Minister of Finance, Mr Enoch Godongwana, will be delivering his inaugural Budget Speech on 23 February 2021, when he’ll tell the nation about government’s plans to spend money, address the large budget deficit and increase tax revenue, amongst other things.
Speaking of tax, SARS gazetted a new rule in late November concerning incidences of non-compliance that are subject to a fixed amount penalty.
With effect from 1 January 2022, an individual who fails to submit an income tax return as and when required will be liable for a penalty even if they have only a single outstanding return.
The rule is applicable for years of assessment commencing from 1 March 2020, which is why some provisional taxpayers submitting their 2020-2021 tax returns prior to the 31 January deadline were hit with ‘late submission’ penalties. The SARS eFiling system was apparently rejecting them as provisional taxpayers because at the time of submission they were exempt from being considered provisional taxpayers according to exclusion clauses in the definition.
This implied that these tax returns should have been submitted by the 2 December 2021 deadline, hence the penalties. While these penalties have now been automatically reversed in many cases, it is well worth checking your SARS notifications if you filed your return as a provisional taxpayer.
We at CA Trust Company can help you ensure that your tax affairs are in order, so that you won’t incur penalties and can claim expenses legitimately. For both individuals and companies, we advise on and assist with accounting and tax-related administration, record-keeping, compliance and resolving disputes with SARS.
