The 2022 Employer Annual Reconciliation filing season will soon be opening on 1 April 2022 and will close on 31 May 2022. This blog post details how this impacts you as an employee. For information on how this impacts you as an employer, please see this blog post.

How does this impact me as an employee?

During this period, you should receive your tax certificate from your employer, either electronically through employee self-service or email, or as a hardcopy printout. Employers are legally required to give this to you, so please politely request this from your employer if you have not received it by 31 May 2022. 

Why do I need a tax certificate?

During the tax filing season for individuals, which usually opens on 1 July and closes during November each year, you are required to submit your income tax return (ITR12) on eFiling. This will determine whether SARS owes you a refund or whether you will need to pay money over to SARS. After submission, SARS may elect to audit or verify the details of your return. As part of this audit or verification, SARS may request that you submit your tax certificates as supporting documents, along with any other supporting documents that they may need. Please ensure that you submit the certificate for the correct year of assessment - this can be viewed at the top of the first page of your tax certificate.

What is an IRP5 / IT3(a)?

An IRP5 or IT3(a) is a tax certificate - for simplicity, many people refer to the general term ‘tax certificate’, but more specifically, these are called an IRP5 or IT3(a). An IRP5 is a tax certificate that contains PAYE, while an IT3(a) is a tax certificate where no PAYE was deducted - usually because the individual was under the tax threshold. You can see whether your tax certificate is an IRP5 or IT3(a) by looking in the top right corner of the certificate.

What information does a tax certificate contain?

A tax certificate details all the income that you have earned from your employer during a tax year, which runs from 1 March until 28 February of the following year. In addition, it shows all the benefits and allowances that you received, as well as the amount of PAYE and UIF that was deducted from your income during the course of the tax year. It is a legal requirement for your employer to submit this information to SARS on a bi-annual basis and to report each transaction under a specific source code on the tax certificate:

• Income amounts are reported under source codes beginning with ‘36’; for example, salary payments are generally reported under source code 3601, and bonus payments are generally reported under source code 3605. 
• Allowance amounts are reported under source codes beginning with ‘37’; for example, fixed travel allowances are generally reported under source code 3701
• Benefit amounts are reported under source codes beginning with ‘38’; for example, company car are generally reported under source code 3802 

For more information on the source codes used on tax certificates, refer to this help page.

How many tax certificates should I receive?

You should receive a tax certificate from each employer that you worked for. Additionally, if you worked for an employer and there was a break in your service, you will receive a tax certificate for each service period.

What information should I verify?

When you receive your tax certificate, please verify that:

• Your employee information is correct, including the spelling of your name and surname, your ID number and your contact details.
• Your address and bank account details are up to date.
• The period that you worked for the company is captured correctly.

If any of these details are incorrect, please contact your payroll administrator. You can also update some information yourself by logging an Info Update request using self-service or the mobile app - however, you will still need to request an updated tax certificate from your payroll administrator.

We hope this information helps clear up any uncertainties that you may have about tax certificates. Please note that the SimplePay Support team do not have access to any employee data and will not be able to answer any questions specific to your payslips or tax certificates - please direct these to your company’s payroll administrator. If you have any general questions about tax legislation or processes, please feel free to contact our Support team.

Team SimplePay