Guidelines for Third Party Appointments (AA88)

What’s new?

27 October 2026 – Changes to Third-Party Appointments (AA88) Process for Employers

SARS has the power to appoint an employer to pay any outstanding tax, which is due by a taxpayer, out of any money that is held on behalf of the taxpayer. This process is called the Third-Party Appointments process (AA88). If a taxpayer has outstanding tax debts (this includes penalties, which will accrue until the outstanding returns are submitted), the Tax Administration Act empowers SARS to appoint a third party to recover money held by other third parties on behalf of the taxpayer, or money owed by the third party to the taxpayer. Third parties could be an employer.

The AA88 appointment process has been enhanced with a revised schedule for employers when automatically processing AA88 appointments for Personal Income Tax (PIT) administrative penalties and assessed tax debt. The revised schedule improves the automated process by providing employers with more time to load AA88 deductions before payroll closure and reducing repeated AA88 appointments and cancellations.

For more information, see the updated IT-easyFile-G01 – Third-Party Appointment (AA88) e@syFile™ Employer Guide – External Guide.

What is it?

The Commissioner for the South African Revenue Service (SARS) has the power to appoint any person (referred to as an agent) to pay any outstanding tax, which is due by a taxpayer, out of any money that is held on behalf of the taxpayer. More information:

If a taxpayer has outstanding tax debts (this includes penalties – penalties continue to accrue until the outstanding returns are submitted), the Tax Administration Act empowers the Commissioner for the South African Revenue Service (SARS) to appoint a third party to recover money held by third parties on behalf of the taxpayer, or owed by the third party to the taxpayer. Third parties could be an employer or a bank, etc.
The Third Party Appointment process involves the appointment of a third party (employer, bank or any other person who has the management, custody or control of any income, monies or property of the taxpayer) to collect any outstanding taxes including administrative penalty amounts from a taxpayer. This is an enforcement action and is only taken once all steps have been taken to contact the taxpayer. The contact details used, is the same as what the taxpayer has used to register for e-filing. It is important that the taxpayer knows that it is a lawful requirement to update contact information to SARS. The third party is responsible to pay the relevant amount to SARS on the taxpayer’s behalf.
This means that if you do not respond to any of the notices or demands informing you of your outstanding tax debts, SARS may appoint your employer or any other third party who holds money on your behalf or owes you money, including salary, wages and other types of remuneration, to pay the outstanding amounts to SARS.
Failure by a third party appointment to act may lead to that third party being held personally liable for the tax debt and can also be found guilty of an offence. If convicted, the person is subject to a fine or to imprisonment for not longer than two years.

Who is it for?

Any/All agent appointment is done by appointing any/all third party as an agent through the issuing of a Third party appointment notification (AA88) where a person holds money on behalf of, or owes money to, the taxpayer. Examples of agents that may be appointed are employers, financial institutions such as banks and may also include funds, insurance companies, investment managers, attorneys and debtors.

The Business Requirement Specification: Process and CSV file specification for Third Party Appointments (AA88) details the process and the file layout for exporting and importing AA88 data from e@syFile™ Employer.

How and when should this be paid?

The payment due date will be reflected on the AA88 that will be sent to relevant agent.
The following payment methods are available:

eFiling
Electronic transfer via Internet banking
e@syFile™ Employer.

Enhanced Payment Allocation on e@syFile™ Employer

The payment allocation rules have been enhanced to include the allocation of payments for AA88 based on the payment reference number (PRN) supplied by an employer. Where an outdated PRN is used, these payments will be allocated on a First-In-First-Out (FIFO) basis.

Cancellation/finalisation of AA88s

SARS would like to advise employers of the additional process for the cancellation of/finalised AA88s.

To ensure employees are not negatively impacted, deductions of AA88s should be stopped when an employee has sorted their tax affairs and paid the outstanding AA88 debt. Only SARS can issue a cancellation in the relevant format to the third party.

Employers are requested to continuously synchronise the e@syFile™ Employer, to ensure the latest information concerning AA88s is received from SARS. The newest AA88s are issued by the seventh of each month. However, cancellations or withdrawals can take place anytime during the month, hence the necessity for continuous synchronisation.

All AA88 deductions must also be stopped, when SARS issues a withdrawal/cancellation letter confirming that the outstanding debt has been paid or suitable payment arrangements have been made by the taxpayer.

Employers using e@syFile™ Employer are urged to validate the finalised or cancelled AA88s prior to suspending any deductions, in order to minimise the risk of fraudulent documents having been submitted.

Any overpayment (e.g. where the employer has paid the funds over to SARS already), will be refunded to the employee, provided there are no additional outstanding requirements from SARS (e.g. outstanding returns, updated banking details required, etc.).

Employers not using e@syFile™ Employer are encouraged to download the latest version, as numerous enhancements have been made to streamline the management of AA88 helping employers to easily manage and pay their AA88s to SARS.

Taxpayers can contact SARS on various platforms listed below:

SARS Contact Centre on 0800 00 SARS (7277)
USSD service *134*7277# or 47277
Mobi App
SARS Office
eFiling profile