Individual taxpayers have until midnight to submit their personal income tax returns through the eFiling system.
SARS representative, Janine Mqulwana says taxpayer are encouraged to submit their tax returns online as the branches are currently full, and taxpayers will have to wait in long queues before being assisted.
SARS announced that the contact centre is on standby until 6pm this evening to assist with online submissions.
Taxpayers will be faced with administrative penalties ranging from R250 to R15 000 for missing the submission deadline.
SARS says it will also prosecute people with multiple outstanding returns. Provisional taxpayers using eFiling have until the 31st of January 2019 to file.
The South African Revenue Service’s Executive Compliance Auditor, Fareed Khan‚ has warned that taxpayers’ failure to file tax returns by the looming deadline on the 31st of October could result in penalties, starting the first of November.
Khan says SARS is doing its best to ensure that the e-filing system is as user friendly as possible.
“SARS has done several things to make it easy for people to comply. We have extensive education programmes where we support or provide easy access for taxpayers to our branches, to eFiling. We have extended hours at our branches where people can even go in on a Saturday to submit their returns. But we just would like to want taxpayers that despite these efforts, if they fail to comply there are unfortunately consequences. Penalties are applicable from 1st November if they haven’t complied, but penalties are a last resort, we encourage people to comply voluntarily.”
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