Tax Return Submissions Are Open

The 2019 tax season officially starts on 1 August 2019. However, if an individual makes use of eFiling or the MobiApp to complete their tax return, they are now able to do so, as filing opened on these platforms on Monday 1 July 2019.

Legislation requires that all employees receive a copy of their IRP5/IT3(a) after the tax year ends in February. This should now have been done, whether in digital or hard copy format. Employees can retrieve their tax certificates themselves via self-service on SimplePay, if this function has been made available by the payroll administrator. For more information on this, refer to our help page here.

Individuals should also take note of the following information:

• SARS has revealed a new look eFiling website, which will hopefully improve the filing experience. For an optimal experience with eFiling, SARS recommends that a web browser should not be older than the following:
  Chrome v41, Firefox v55, Edge v13, Safari v10 or Opera v55

• This year, if an individual meets ALL of the following criteria, then they do not need to submit a tax return:

  • Total income from employment for the year before tax is less than R500 000. This was raised from R350 000 last year.
  • Employment income should be received from ONE employer for the full tax year, and NO OTHER EMPLOYER.
  • There should be no other form of INCOME earned (e.g. car allowance, business income, and rental income, taxable interest or income from another job)
  • The individual doesn’t have any additional allowable tax related deductions to claim (e.g. medical expenses, retirement annuity contributions and travel expenses).

If there is uncertainty about whether a tax return is required, this can be checked using this SARS tool.

Team SimplePay