In terms of section 240(1) of the Tax Administration Act, 2011, an individual can only be registered as a tax practitioner if they are registered with both an RCB and SARS.

SARS has identified approximately 5 000 tax practitioners who are linked to incorrect RCBs on their RAV01. SARS engaged the RCBs and obtained confirmation from them that the tax practitioners are not their members. (For example, a tax practitioner states that they are registered with RCB X and when SARS engaged with RCB X, it received confirmation that the tax practitioner is not their member.) To correct this situation, SARS will issue communication to each of the affected tax practitioners and give them the opportunity to correct their RCB information on their RAV01 within a specified deadline. Once this period expires, the tax practitioner status will be deregistered if their RCB information is not corrected.

This is to ensure the integrity of the tax practitioner register.

This article also appeared in the June 2023 Tax Practitioner Connect.

Tax practitioners are urged to use the tax practitioner’s profile when assisting clients. This allows them to:

• Activate multiple taxpayers against that portfolio type.
• Group taxpayers under the same portfolio type.
• Specify a descriptive name for each group (for ease of reference).

As a registered eFiler, you can act in different “roles” on eFiling (e.g., tax administrator). These “roles” are referred to as Portfolio Types, e.g.:

• Individual—a person acting as themself to administer their own individual taxes.
• Tax Practitioner—a person registered with SARS and an RCB and has a signed Power of Attorney (POA) to act on behalf of another taxpayer.
• Organisation—a representative of a tax-paying entity acting either as the representative taxpayer (e.g., public officer, executor of an estate, etc.) or an appointed representative with a signed POA in place.

If you registered different portfolio types prior to 1 July 2019, you would have accessed the abovementioned portfolios by using a unique username and password for each. From 1 July 2019, you would have only used one username and password (referred to as the primary login) to login to eFiling.

You can then choose the portfolio that you want to access.

Tax practitioners may only use their tax practitioner’s profile when assisting their clients. The use of the taxpayer’s or organisation’s eFiling login details is a misrepresentation of the user of the profile and, therefore, prohibited. Please also see Rule 6 of the Electronic Communications Act, 2005.

Tax practitioners are also encouraged to have shared access with their clients to ensure transparency on the clients’ tax affairs.

For more information, click on the SARS Readiness Programme: Module 6 – eFiling (PDF) and Video Link.