Third Party Data Submission Platform

7 June 2024 – Changes in SARS medical aid data reporting

In line with our strategic objective to make it easy for all taxpayers to meet their personal tax obligations, the South African Revenue Service (SARS) is implementing changes in the Medical Aid data reporting. SARS has recognised the challenges faced by taxpayers in submitting medical aid data accurately and on time. To simplify this process and reduce the burden on taxpayers, SARS is making changes on the data that is required from medical aid schemes.

The changes include:

• Provision of data on disabled Principal members and their dependents
• Data of persons making payment on behalf of principal members.
• Separate non-allowable from the allowable expenses, currently reported as claims not paid or covered by medical schemes on the IT3(f) certificate.

• Field 4, File Layout Version must be 3.
• For inclusivity of disabled taxpayers with multiple disabilities, the Principal Member and Dependent Disability Information containers in the Medical Scheme Contributions external BRS (Version 1.07) have been expanded to allow the selection of multiple disabilities. For ease of reference, the changes in the latest BRS (Version 1.08) are as follows:

• • Under the Principal Member Disability Information record, fields 261 to 265 have been added and field 191 has been amended.
  • Additionally, the Dependent Disability Information record has additional fields from 266 to 270 and field 216 has been amended.

These changes will also allow SARS to reduce audit interventions, and enable speedy assessment of tax returns, and assist in allocating medical tax credits to the correct taxpayers. Effective September 2024, medical aids are expected to provide the requested data in line with the conditions outlined in the external Medical Scheme Contributions Business Requirement Specification (BRS).

The Medical Aid updated solution will be availed via Connect: Direct® and Secured File Gateway [HTTPS] for Trade Testing from 12 August to 06 September 2024, refer trade testing queries to [email protected] with the subject Medical Trade Testing.

To allow for a smooth transition, SARS will grant a grace period of 6 months for partial submission of the requested data while stakeholders attain resources that consent to full compliance. Where such cases of partial compliance occur, reasons and a commitment date for full compliance will be required.

4 April 2023 – Third Party Data Annual Submission

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 – 29 February 2024.

Third Parties (banks, medical schemes, fund administrators, section 18A approved institutions 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,
• medical scheme contributions, and insurance payments,
• IT3 data submissions: IT3(b), IT3(c), IT3(d), IT3(e), IT3(s) and, *IT3(t).

 * The closing date for IT3(t) submissions is 30 September 2024.

Third Party data providers can submit data to SARS using these three electronic options:

1. eFiling (via a data submission form with a limited volume)
2. Connect: Direct® (Unlimited)
3. Secured File Gateway [HTTPS] (for files smaller than 10MB)

To ensure a successful submission to use and activate these channels, you must be registered with eFiling.

27 March 2024 – Changes in SARS medical aid data reporting

In line with our strategic objective to make it easy for all taxpayers to meet their personal tax obligations, the South African Revenue Service (SARS) is implementing changes in the Medical Aid data reporting. SARS has recognised the challenges faced by taxpayers in submitting medical aid data accurately and on time. To simplify this process and reduce the burden on taxpayers, SARS is making changes on the data that is required from medical aid schemes.

The changes include:

• Provision of data on disabled Principal members and their dependents
• Data of persons making payment on behalf of principal members.
• Separate non-allowable from the allowable expenses, currently reported as claims not paid or covered by medical schemes on the IT3(f) certificate.

These changes will also allow SARS to reduce audit interventions, and enable speedy assessment of tax returns, and assist in allocating medical tax credits to the correct taxpayers. Effective September 2024, medical aids are expected to provide the requested data in line with the conditions outlined in the external Medical Scheme Contributions Business Requirement Specification (BRS).

To allow for a smooth transition, SARS will grant a grace period of 6 months for partial submission of the requested data while stakeholders attain resources that consent to full compliance. Where such cases of partial compliance occur, reasons and a commitment date for full compliance will be required.

18 March 2024 – Third Party Data Annual Submissions: 01 April 2024 – 31 May 2024: OPEN

The SARS Third Party Data Annual Submissions process for the period 1 March 2023 – 29 February 2024 opens on 1 April 2024 and will close on 31 May 2024. Submissions in respect of data files and declarations of the various reportable data types as detailed per Table 1 are now due.

Table 1: Submission Dates – 2024: 

Please note the above dates and ensure that all your submissions are done within the specified period to ensure a smooth submission process:

• The Test Platform is, and will remain, open throughout the submission period to ensure that all your data files submitted conform to the specified BRS prior to being submitted to Production. Testing support is available to ensure that any issues picked up during testing receive the necessary attention and priority.
• The Production Platform is also open, and we encourage you to submit your 3^rd Party data for the 2024 tax year as soon as you are ready on or before 31 May 2024. The final two weeks of the submission period are always busy and if you delay your submissions, you will experience delays in the processing of the submitted data.

Making your submission
Please follow these five steps to prepare your submission file, submit to SARS, and declare your data before the submission due date.

• Step 1: Prepare a data file as per specified BRS.
• Step 2: If you have not already done so, you will need to enrol for Third Party Data Submission on SARS eFiling. You may use either:
  • eFiling (via a data submission form with a limited volume)
  • Connect: Direct® (Unlimited)
  • Secured File Gateway [HTTPS] (for files smaller than 10MB)
• Step 3: To test your data file on the Test Platform, request access from Third Party Data Support
• Step 4: Submit the data on the Production Platform using your preferred channel as per step 2 above.
• Step 5: Declare a summary of your data submissions by submitting the specified declaration form via eFiling.

Important to note – procedural requirements:

• You are urged to make use of the Test Platform prior to making your production submissions to ensure that your data submissions are validated. The functionality which previously allowed submissions of Test files in the Production environment has been removed.
• In respect of FATCA and the CRS Regulation, if you have no financial accounts to report, you are required to submit a NIL file and a declaration form as proof that you have done the required due diligence and that you declare that you have no financial accounts. This can now be done on eFiling via the FTI-01 form.
• Please make every effort to ensure complete, correct, and timeous submissions the first time around to minimise the number of revisions submitted. This is significant because of our continuous expansion of the auto assessment population and to reduce the potential of mismatches occurring relating to your data and impacting your client’s ability to fulfil their tax obligations.
• In the event you are required to amend your submissions, please alert us of such by emailing the SARS Third Party Data Support as soon as possible.
• Please make timely submissions as late or non-submissions may be liable for penalties.

Should you experience any challenges while making your submissions, you are welcome to contact us by emailing SARS Third Party Data Support ([email protected]). Please follow our webpage to be kept up to date on changes and communication in relation to SARS 3^rd Party Data.

18 September 2023 – Inclusion of IT3(t) & IT3(d) to the IT3 Third-Party Data reporting