Is PAYE and Income Tax the same thing?

Income tax for individuals refers to the tax on your world-wide earnings, which can be divided into:

• Tax on employment earnings, such as your salary, fringe benefits and allowances; and
• Tax on non-employment earnings, such a rent income.

PAYE is a method of collecting income tax that applies to your employment earnings. Amounts subject to PAYE are taxed at the time of payment on the payslip. Some employment earnings are not subject to PAYE and the income tax on these is only payable on assessment e.g., subsistence allowances where the amount is above the prescribed rate.

Non-employment earnings are collected via provisional tax payments and on assessment.

Please note: Tax on assessment refers to the tax due after an individual submits their income tax return (ITR12) annually to SARS (usually via SARS eFiling). The tax due on assessment is the difference between the income tax calculated for the individual for the year and the amounts that they’ve paid throughout the year via PAYE and provisional tax.

Please note: Provisional tax refers to payments made directly to SARS after registering and filing for provisional tax on eFiling. You can read more about provisional tax on this SARS webpage.

SimplePay only assists with the calculation of PAYE and not any of the other income tax collection methods. However, to reduce the amount payable on assessment, employees can opt to pay additional income tax via PAYE. This is done via the Voluntary Tax Over-deduction system item – this is only allowed if there is an agreement between the employee and the employer. More information on Voluntary Tax Over-deductions is available here.