Tough New Penalties

SARS has announced the phasing-in of the new system of administrative penalties for taxpayers who fail to comply with their tax obligations.

This is part of a project to ensure greater fairness and efficiency in the tax system. SARS believes that it is only fair on the majority of compliant taxpayers, who meet their tax obligations and contribute towards our country’s development that SARS takes tough action against non-compliant taxpayers, especially those who have consistently failed to comply with their tax obligations. Read more on Penalties in our printed brochure, click here.  Or see our abbreviated insert on Penalties, click here.

 

Media Release

Schedule of Penalties

Johannesburg 14 October 2009 – The South African Revenue Service (SARS) will introduce a system of strict new administrative penalties against non-compliant taxpayers from 23 November 2009. In effect, taxpayers have until 20 November 2009 this year – the final deadline of the 2009 Tax Season - to submit any outstanding returns in order to avoid being penalised under the new penalty regime. The Administrative penalty regulations legally came into effect on 1 January 2009 and provide for the imposition of penalties for a range of non-compliance, including failure to register as a taxpayer, failure to inform SARS of a change of address and other personal particulars, and failure to submit tax returns and other documents to SARS.   Read more...

1 Item 2 Assessed loss or taxable income for preceding year 3 Penalty (i) Assessed loss R250 (ii) R0 – R250 000 R250 (iii) R250 001 – R500 000 R500 (iv) R500 001 – R1000 000 R1 000 (v) R1 000 001 – R5 000 000  R2 000 (vi) R5 000 001 – R10 000 000 R4 000 (vii) R10 000 001 – R50 000 000  R8 000 (viii) Above R50 000 000  R16 000

FAQs

Regulations

Why is SARS doing this now? Which offences will be penalised? When will the non-compliance penalty system come into operation? Were taxpayers given enough time to correct their non-compliance? What penalty amounts are prescribed in the schedule of penalties? Exactly how will these penalty amounts be levied on a non-compliant taxpayer?   Read more...

The enabling provisions for the administrative penalty regulations are in section 75B of the Income Tax Act, 1962, and the regulations came into effect on 1 January 2009. Although the regulations came into effect on 1 January 2009, the implementation was postponed to allow non-compliant taxpayers additional time to rectify any non-compliance and to allow for the development of automated systems and processes to administer the new penalties.  Click here to view the Gazette...

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