Employees’ Tax Compliance Starts with You
The Employer Annual Declaration period opened on 1 April and will close on 31 May 2024. During this period, employers must submit their annual reconciliation declarations (EMP501) with accurate and up-to-date payroll information about their employees. The EMP501 must include:
- Monthly employer declarations (EMP201) for Pay As You Earn (PAYE), Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) contributions, and the Skills Development Levy (SDL);
- Information relating to payments made (excluding penalties and interest paid); and
- Employee tax certificates (IRP5/IT3[a] generated) covering the tax year from 1 March 2023 to 29 February 2024.
For more information, see the PAYE landing page.
Third-party Data Annual Submission
This is a reminder that the SARS Third-party Data Annual Submissions opened on 1 April 2024 and will close on 31 May 2024. Third parties must submit accurate and complete data for the entire period of 1 March 2023 to 29 February 2024. Third parties (banks, medical schemes and fund administrators, among others) must, by law, send data to SARS via a return. They must include information such as:
- Savings account interest;
- Medical scheme contributions;
- Withholding tax on interest;
- Dividends tax;
- IT3 data submissions: IT3(b), IT3(c), IT3(e), IT3(s); and
- Medical scheme contributions, and insurance payments.
Third-party data providers can submit data to SARS using these three electronic options:
- eFiling (via a data submission form with a limited volume);
- Connect: Direct® (Unlimited); or
- Secured File Gateway [HTTPS] (for files smaller than 10MB).
To ensure a successful submission and to use and activate these channels, third parties must be registered with eFiling.
For more information, see the Third-party Data Submission landing page.
Advancement in requesting SARS certificate for Third-party Data Submission
As part of the third-party data submission process, third-party entities are given a SARS security certificate, which forms part of their enrolment and activation process, annually upon request. The SARS security certificate allows SARS to validate and process high-volume data files received from third-party entities during their data file submissions via Connect: Direct™ technology (CD) and Secure Web: https (SFG).
However, since SARS no longer supports browsers that were identified as posing a security risk, this made it difficult for many third-party entities to request and renew their security certificates. Additionally, this was disadvantageous to the Third-party Data Submission process as new entities could not easily enrol and renew expired certificates. SARS addressed this issue and third-party entities are now able to enrol and activate their preferred channels of submission via eFiling. Following the completion of the enrolment and activation, a security certificate that contains information about the certificate’s owner, as well as public and private keys will be issued. Only then will third-party entities be allowed to send their data files to SARS via CD and SFG.
Any queries relating to the Third-party Data Submission process should be referred to the third-party data unit via the following email address: [email protected].
The following guides relating to Third-party Data Submission have been updated and are available on the SARS website:
- GEN-ENR-01-G10 – Manage Submission of Third-party Data – External Guide
- GEN-ENR-01-G01 – Guide for the Submission of Third-party Data using the Connect Direct channel – External Guide
- GEN-ENR-01-G02 – Guide for the Submission of Third-party Data using the HTTPS channel – External Guide
Enhancement of SARS Online Query System
The following changes have been made:
- The ‘Submit supporting documents’ and ‘Report new estate case’ queries have been updated in line with the latest system enhancements.
- The following new queries have been included in the guide:
- Request for Auto Assessment status: This enables the taxpayers to query whether they are part of the SARS Auto Assessment population or not.
- Submit a Large Business and International (LBI) query: This enables the taxpayers registered at the LBI or High Net Worth (HNW) to direct their queries to LBI or HNW.
If you need help, see the Guide to the SARS Online Query System.
