South African Revenue Service (Sars) Commissioner Edward Kieswetter on July 16 thanked those taxpayers who have interacted with the service over the past two weeks.

This includes those who were part of the Individual Tax Filing Season 2024 that started on July 15 and will run until October 21 and January 20 2025 for non-provisional and provisional taxpayers, respectively. 

 “In line with our strategic intent of developing a tax and customs system that is based on voluntary compliance, through the synthesis of people, data and technology, we continue to modernise our systems.

“We are continuing to work to provide a seamless, empowering and enabling taxpayer experience, where tax eventually just happens for the millions of South Africans. We are deliberate in making the filing season a non-event,” says Kieswetter.

Sars reports that nearly 150-million third-party data records were harvested this year, which serves as the building block of the filing season.

It notes that processing this volume of Big Data through the application of AI and enhanced machine learning algorithms enables Sars to automatically assess a larger number of taxpayers, prepopulate more returns, improve the integrity of taxpayer declarations and simplify the taxpayer experience.

In the first 14 days, Sars says, over five-million taxpayers were given auto assessments, with 99.13% of them accepting the outcome without making any changes.

It adds that refunds of about R10-billion have been paid to 1.6-million auto-assessed taxpayers thus far, with an average refund of R5 900.

“We completed these annual returns and tax assessments while, simultaneously, running each assessment outcome through our compliance risk and tax fraud detection capability.

“All this is possible because of the investment that we have been able to make in increasing and expanding the use of third-party data in the past few years. Last year, this work alone added R100-billion to the fiscus through the prevention of impermissible refunds. Despite these successes, I believe that we can do so much more,” says Kieswetter.

After the opening of filing season on July 15, Sars says 191 000 returns have been filed with 183 000 – 9% – filed digitally through eFiling and the Sars MobiApp, while 7 700 – 3% – were filed through Taxpayer Service Centres, of which 90% were processed within five seconds. 

Sars says it is continuing to expand its offering of self-service educational content through the Sars TV YouTube Channel and the Sars website to provide informative and easily accessible customised clarity to taxpayers.

“We have seen some one million users interacting with this content over the past two weeks, thereby fulfilling our strategic objective of providing certainty and clarity to taxpayers,” says Kieswetter.

Pursuant to its Vision 2024 of building a smart, modern Sars with “unquestionable integrity”, Sars says it is modernising its digital platforms through several enhancements and additional functionalities to enable taxpayers to comply with their obligations simply, easily and seamlessly from anywhere. 

Sars notes that its digital platforms have seen 16-million interactions in the past two weeks through Sars eFiling, the MobiApp, Lwazi Chatbot, Help-You-eFile, the Sars Online Query System, a USSD service for non-smartphones users, social media and its newly launched WhatsApp channel, thus minimising, as far as possible, the need for a taxpayer to visit or call its offices.

The Sars Online Service is an easy-to-use online platform that can be accessed through Sars’ website – https://tools.sars.gov.za/soqs.

WhatsApp contact can be accessed by saving the Sars WhatsApp number (0800 11 7277) and sending a message and following the prompts. 

“Despite the availability of digital platforms, Sars has also readied our Taxpayer Service Centres and service consultants to serve taxpayers who require assistance in complying with their obligations through any of its available service channels — telephonic engagements, virtual or in-person appointments, self-service terminals at Sars offices and Mobile Tax Units deployed in designated communities and outlying areas. We have serviced 330 000 taxpayers in the last two weeks,” says Kieswetter.