hertenberger.co.za

For those taxpayers who haven’t yet completed their electronic tax returns, only 12 more days remain. 20 November is the official deadline for submission of tax returns and SARS is no longer pandering to those who file any later than that. Hefty fines are promised.

I got my stuff sorted about two weeks ago, but then waited at least another week before I plugged all the information into the electronic form. Last year, a weird validation issue caused my return to be rejected and necessitated a visit to the local SARS office to complete the return with the aid of a consultant. The error was inexplicable to them too, since the actual filing process proceeded without error. In any case, the overall time it took to get everything done was minimal. This year, I’ve been even more impressed: I clicked the File button on Wednesday morning. By today, my refund had been completed and all documentation stating a clean bill of health provided to me – that’s less than a week! Tax filing season is never pleasant, but I’m very impressed with the speed at which SARS is operating lately. Now if only our other government departments could get in on the act…