Things looking up for Sars as 46% more taxpayers submit returns in 2021

The South African Revenue Service (Sars) said there had been an increase in voluntary compliance in this year’s tax season.

Sars commissioner Edward Kieswetter said Sars had faced several problems, including Covid restrictions, load shedding and internal limitations.

But its voluntary compliance promotional programme had paid off, according to statistics and trends from this filing season.

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The story behind the numbers:

• More than 4.3 million citizens filed non-provisional tax returns, a 46% increase from last year;
• More than 2.6 million were submitted via eFiling, up 7%;
• A total of 523 659 returns were submitted via the MobiApp, up 59%; and
• More than 306 000 returns were submitted at branches, down 15%.

Taxpayers also used virtual appointments, booked via SMS, to submit returns.

More than three million taxpayers received an auto assessment. More than 2.2 million accepted the auto assessment, 1.5 million without changes.

“This represents a 74% acceptance rate of a new service offering,” said Kieswetter.

But the tax collector is turning its sights on more than 630 000 taxpayers who neither accepted nor edited their returns.

“We undertook to provide at least eight out of every 10 taxpayers with an assessment outcome in under five seconds. This year, 93% of assessments were issued in under five seconds. Last year it was 85%,” said Kieswetter.

“We also committed to paying at least seven out of every 10 taxpayers their refund if it is due, within 72 hours.”

Refunds were paid to 86% of taxpayers within 72 hours, compared to last year’s 77.38%.

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“In all, we paid out more than R17 billion in refunds. The average refund was R11 000.”

Sars had promised seven out of 10 verification audits would be completed within 21 days.

“We missed this target, reaching only 67%,” Kieswetter said.

Sars will levy penalties from January where one or more returns are outstanding. Before the change in the legislation, Sars could only levy penalties where two or more returns were outstanding.