What’s New at SARS

21 April 2026 – The South African Revenue Service (SARS) in line with its strategic objectives of providing clarity and certainty and making it easy and simple for taxpayers to transact with the organization is assisting all employers and other third-party data providers to improve their data declarations. The submission period for these entities has already kicked off from 1 April 2026 to 31 May 2026.

Traditionally, the spotlight has been filing season for individuals, however the underlying process that determines if the filing experience for individual taxpayers is smooth or cumbersome, whether it be due to accurate auto-assessments, less queries, or fewer disputes, is the submission period for employers and other third-part data providers. This period runs annually from 01 April to 31 May and requires employers and other mandated third-data providers to submit remuneration and financial data related to individual taxpayers for the preceding tax year (01 March 2025 – 28 February 2026).

Third-party data providers that are required to submit third-party data include all employers, financial institutions, SARS-approved section 18A approved entities, co-operatives, mmedical aid schemes and Trusts, amongst others. A detailed list of third-party data providers who are mandated to submit is available at Third Party Data submission at a glance | South African Revenue Service.

SARS relies on the data from employers and other third-party data providers to pre-populate and auto-assess the personal tax returns of individual taxpayers which allows the taxpayer to confirm the details on their tax return before submitting. Pre-population of third-party data is the first step to SARS auto-assessing roughly 6 million taxpayers on an annual basis.

The non-submission or submission of inaccurate third-party data negatively impacted taxpayers, in that they were excluded from the auto-assessment process.  When third-party data is submitted accurately and timeously, taxpayers can be auto-assessed, providing them with an easier filing experience. It is therefore critical that employers and third-party data providers submit the latest, accurate information on time.

SARS has noted that some employers and third-party data providers appear not to be fully aware of their reporting obligations and have not adapted to comply with the evolving regulatory requirements. Some employers and third-party data providers wait till too close to the deadline to submit the necessary information, which sometimes makes it difficult to resolve discrepancies in the data provided.

During the 2025 tax filing season for individuals, incomplete data accounted for the following verifications:

1. 27 436 verifications were created due to missing or unmatched Retirement contribution
2. 81 588 verifications created due to missing or unmatched employer IRP5 data
3. 16 819 verifications created due to missing or unmatched medical data

For the 2026 season, SARS is aiming for behaviour change by ensuring employers and third-party data providers are ‘pre-filing ready’ and submit earlier than in previous years. Technical support sessions will be held where SARS subject matter experts will assist with submissions.

SARS urges third-party data providers to use SARS-approved channels, namely:

• eFiling, noting that this channel accommodates a limited volume of 25 certificates. It accommodates fifty certificates for IT3(d) and IT3(t)
• Connect Direct® accommodates an unlimited volume of data submissions
• Secured File Gateway (HTTPS) accommodates files smaller than 10 MB
• e@syfile™: Employers, tax practitioners, and payroll administrators may download a new and enhanced version of e@syfile™ Employer from the eFiling website at  www.sarsefiling.co.za before submitting their declarations.

Third-party data providers must register for eFiling to activate these channels if not already registered.

Further guidance may be obtained in the business requirement specifications (BRS) and user guides on the SARS website at IT3 Data Submission | South African Revenue Service.  Employers may refer to Annual Employer Declaration process.

For further information, please contact [email protected]

21 April 2026 – SARS is modernising the Tax Practitioner registration process to improve governance and compliance.

What is changing?

• A three-step registration process remains in place: RCB initiates registration, applicant completes the RAV01, and finalises application on eFiling.
• SARS will apply risk-based verification after receiving the application and may request supporting documents where a risk is identified.
• Registration status on eFiling is simplified to: Active, Suspended or Deregistered for RCBs.

How does this benefit you?

• Improved visibility of registration status on eFiling.
• Improved accuracy of tax practitioner register.
• Stronger governance and compliance through risk-based verification.

Updated guides:

• GEN-GEN-59-G01 – Criteria for the Registration of Tax Practitioners – External Guide
• GEN-GEN-58-G01 – How RCBs can Manage Tax Practitioner Members on eFiling – External Guide

20 April 2026 – A new Excise legislation, related to diesel refund claims under rebate item 670.04 of Schedule 6 to the Customs and Excise Act, Act No. 91 of 1964, came into effect on 01 April 2026. This legislation increases the allowable diesel consumption percentage for diesel refund claims for on-land primary sector beneficiaries from 80% to 100%. As a result, the eligible litres calculation has been updated in the system and on the policy document.

• SE-DSL-02 – Manage Diesel Refund Calculation – External Policy

20 April 2026 – Customs and Excise Act, 1964

• Glencore Operations SA (Pty) Ltd and Others v Commissioner for South African Inland Revenue and Another (406/2024) [2026] ZASCA 47 (9 April 2026)

Revenue – Customs and Excise Act 91 of 1964 (the Act) – diesel fuel concession – entitlement to a refund of diesel fuel levy used for primary production in mining – interpretation and ambit of Note 6(f)(ii)(cc) of rebate item 670.04 in Part 3 of Schedule 6 to the Act – claim by entity engaged in mining activities for diesel rebates – claim disallowed by Commissioner on grounds that the taxpayer was not ‘a person in possession of the necessary authorisation’ within ambit of Note 6(f)(ii)(cc) – decision of the high court confirming the Commissioner’s determination and holding that taxpayer not entitled to a refund of diesel fuel levy for the relevant period reversed on appeal.

20 April 2026 – SARS is undertaking an initiative to verify, maintain, and enhance the accuracy of taxpayers’ contact details in order to ensure compliance. To support this process, SARS will send SMS messages and emails requesting taxpayers to log into eFiling to update or confirm their contact details.

Maintaining accurate and up-to-date contact information enables you to receive important communication and updates from SARS promptly.

The message will read as follows:

Dear Taxpayer [Personal details]

SARS is updating taxpayers’ contact details to ensure accuracy. Please update your information on the eFiling platform to stay compliant.

Follow the following steps to complete the process:

1. Log into eFiling.
2. Select ‘My Profile’ from the left menu.
3. Proceed to the ‘Profile and Preference Setup’ tab.
4. Update or confirm your contact details for SARS’s records.
   

Sincerely

Issued on behalf of the Commissioner for the South African Revenue Service

20 April 2026 – Value Added Tax Act, 1991

• SARSTC VAT 32666 (VAT) [2026] ZATC JHB (18 March 2026)

VAT on service fee: Whether VAT on service fees, which the Taxpayer debited against the accounts of its clients in terms of a banker/client agreement, could be deducted as an input tax in subsequent VAT returns after the service fees were subsequently credited to the accounts of the clients.

17 April 2026 – Multilateral Instrument

Multilateral Instrument (MLI) synthesised texts:

• Denmark
• Kenya
• Indonesia
• Israel
• Malta
• Portugal

17 April 2026 – The Tax Directives System has been enhanced, and the guides have been updated in line with the legislative changes.

Recognition of Transfer (ROT)

The process to cancel ROTs submitted to SARS has been enhanced to reduce delays in finalising cancellation requests.

• Supporting documents will not be required when the Fund Administrators/Long-term insurer submits a request on eFiling.

• Review cases for manual intervention will no longer be created as the ROT cancellation will be automatically cancelled.

• The functionality for Bulk cancellation of ROTs has been added on eFiling to allow the requestor to submit multiple cancellation requests at the same time.
• The Fund Administrators/Long-term insurer will be able to view the status of a cancellation request and verify if a ROT has been cancelled.

To assist Fund Administrators/Long-term insurer to manage the administrative process around reminders for outstanding ROTs:

• In addition to the ability able to view existing ROTs that have been submitted on the relevant eFiling profile, Fund Administrators/Long-term insurer will now be able to enquire and view the details of the ROT reminders sent by SARS as a prompt to submit outstanding ROTs.

Double Tax Agreement (DTA) on Form C tax directive application

From 17 April 2026, the Fund Administrator will be able to indicate on the tax directive application form that a DTA is applicable, and a manual review case will be created for the Auditor/Assessor to verify the applicability of the DTA.

Due to system constraints, Fund Administrators were previously required to e-mail a manual tax directive application to SARS for a tax directive to be issued in line with the provisions of the applicable DTA. From 17 April 2027, these manual tax directive applications will not be accepted.

Certificate of Residence

Guidance has been provided to assist in determining which documents may be accepted as an alternative to a Certificate of Residence.

Backdated (Antedated) salaries and/or Pensions

When the reason on the tax directive is ‘Backdated (Antedated) salaries and/or Pensions’, the employer is required to provide a breakdown of the payment into the following categories:

• Income,
• Benefit,
• Deductions

Request for Relief of South African Tax (RST01)

Currently when the RST01 – ‘Directive Application by Non-Resident for Relief of SA Tax for Pension and Annuities’ is finalised, the tax directive (IRP3er) issued does not reflect the valid from/to dates per SARS intention to issue this directive with a 3-year validity period. The IRP3er has been enhanced to display the 3-year validity period.

Pronouncement from 2026 Budget Speech

The tax directive system will be updated for the following changes:

• The Paragraph (c) Living annuity commutation value, prescribed by Notice 7289 in the Government Gazette 54399 of 23 March 2026 is increased from R125 000 to R150 000 with effect from 1 March 2026, irrespective of whether there were any previous commutations on retirement.

• The value of the of the amount (De minimis) that a taxpayer can take in full, on retirement, without being subject to the annuitisation rules has been increased from an amount equal or less than R247 500 to an amount equal or less than R360 000 from 1 March 2026.

Updated guides:

• IT-AE-33-G01 – Tax directive Cease to be resident and Expiry of visas – External Guide
• IT-AE-41-G01 – Completion Guide for IRP3(a) and IRP3(s) Form – External Guide
• IT-AE-41-G02 – Guide to Complete the Lump sum Tax Directive Application Forms – External Guide
• IT-AE-41-G03 – Guide to Complete Submit and Cancel a Recognition of Transfer – External Guide
• IT-AE-41-G04 – Guide to the Tax Directive functionality on eFiling – External Guide

17 April 2026 – Customs and Excise Act, 1964

• Draft amendments to rules under section 120 – Surety bonds

Due date for comment: 8 May 2026

17 April 2026 – Customs and Excise Act, 1964: Publication details for tariff amendments notice R7373, as published in Government Gazette 54519 of 17 April 2026, are now available.

16 April 2026 – The Eastern Cape mobile tax unit schedules for May and June 2026 are now available.

16 April 2026 – Customs and Excise Act, 1964: The tariff amendments notices, scheduled for publication in the Government Gazette, relate to the amendments to –

• Part 1 of Schedule No. 1, by the insertion of tariff subheading 7310.10.20, in order to increase the general rate of customs duty on conical steel drums, of steel, of a capacity of 210 li or more but not exceeding 234 li from free of duty to 15% (ITAC Report 735).

Publication details will be made available later

16 April 2026 – Achieving our Vision of a smart, modern SARS with unquestionable integrity that is trusted and admired is of paramount importance. Pivotal to the delivery of our vision are our digital platforms and technology infrastructure. To provide clarity and certainty, make it easy for taxpayers and traders to comply with their obligations and building public trust and confidence, our technology assets must demonstrate the highest levels of availability, robustness and security.

In accordance with our Vision and Strategic Objectives, which include modernising our systems to provide Digital and Streamlined online services, we are hard at work ensuring that our digital platforms and technology infrastructure are available, robust and secure, by performing regular upgrades, enhancements and maintenance.

Considering the above, SARS Digital platform maintenance is scheduled for:

Friday, 17 April 2026 from 18h00 to 23h30.

During this time, you may experience intermittent service interruption on our eFiling, Tax and Customs Digital Platforms.

15 April 2026 – As SARS, we continuously optimise our systems to provide clarity and certainty to taxpayers and traders and make it easy for them to fulfil their tax obligations. These enhancements help to make our digital platforms safer and more secure.

Therefore, as per our previous communication, we plan to implement the enhancements to our Tax Directives system on Friday, 17 April 2026 in line with the IBIR-006 Tax Directives Interface Specification Version 6.903.

The current scope of the enhancements is outlined below:

• The repeal of section 8A of the Income Tax Act 58 of 1962 in its entirety, as it has been superseded by section 8C of the Income Tax Act 58 of 1962. This change is applicable as of 1 April 2026.
• SARS will introduce the following functionality on the eFiling platform:
  • Outstanding Recognition of Transfer (ROT) reminder statements.
  • Submission of a ROT cancellation request without a requirement to attach supporting documents.
  • Bulk ROT cancellation request, without a requirement to attach supporting documents.
  • A new Report which will detail all previously issued Tax Directives for applications that were submitted on the eFiling platform.
  • A ROT cancellation case enquiry screen to track the status of a ROT cancellation request.
• All outstanding ROT’s up to 1 March 2023 are no longer required and have been deemed exempt from submission.
• The eFiling platform will enable the creation of multiple profiles within an entity for the purposes of Tax Directive application submissions.
• RST01 tax directive (IRP3er) will now display the three-year validity period of the directive.
• Additional fields have been added on the FORM C to provide for the confirmation of residency as well as to enable the application of the Double Taxation Agreement (DTA) provisions.

Please do not submit tax directives files using the current form after 16:00 on 17 April 2026. Any files submitted thereafter will be queued and processed once the Tax Directives system upgrade has been completed.

SARS values your support and collaboration.

13 April 2026 – In the April 2026 issue we take a closer look at the the 2026 Employer Filing Season that is now officially open and runs from 1 April to 31 May 2026.

9 April 2026 – Achieving our Vision of a smart, modern SARS with unquestionable integrity that is trusted and admired is of paramount importance. Pivotal to the delivery of our vision are our digital platforms and technology infrastructure. To provide clarity and certainty, make it easy for taxpayers and traders to comply with their obligations and building public trust and confidence, our technology assets must demonstrate the highest levels of availability, robustness and security.

In accordance with our Vision and Strategic Objectives, which include modernising our systems to provide Digital and Streamlined online services, we are hard at work ensuring that our digital platforms and technology infrastructure are available, robust and secure, by performing regular upgrades, enhancements and maintenance.

Considering the above, SARS Digital platform maintenance is scheduled for:

Saturday, 11 April 2026 from 17h00 to 21h00.

During this time, you may experience intermittent service interruption on our eFiling, Tax and Customs Digital Platforms.

9 April 2026 – As the Commissioner of the South African Revenue Service (SARS) concludes his seven-year term, we invite messages of appreciation and reflection from colleagues, partners, and stakeholders—locally and internationally. This tribute space recognises the impact of Edward Kieswetter’s stewardship, marking the conclusion of a significant chapter in the journey of SARS and celebrating his lasting legacy in service of South Africa and the international community.

Collectively, these messages will convey gratitude and signify the end of an important period of leadership dedicated to South Africa and the global public finance community.

Click here to contribute.

9 April 2026 — SARS’s Illicit Economy Strategy targets corruption and fraud in government departments as high-priority focus areas. Through an ex parte application in the Gauteng Division of the High Court in Pretoria, under section 163 of the Tax Administration Act, SARS has secured a preservation order against two of its former officials, who had resigned from the organisation in 2024 and 2025, respectively.

In addition to meeting the statutory threshold prescribed in the Tax Administration Act for granting a preservation order, SARS presented prima facie evidence before the court of non-compliance with the relevant tax laws by two officials, including corruption, money laundering, unauthorised work outside SARS, breach of the SARS secrecy provisions, and abuse of state properties in furtherance of corruption. The court appointed a curator bonis to preserve assets and prevent their dissipation while tax assessments are being finalised.

The preservation order places under curatorship three immovable properties, six vehicles, and multiple bank and investment accounts held across major financial institutions, to prevent their dissipation. Apart from the assets identified by SARS, the curator has been authorised by the High Court to inquire into and locate further assets that have been concealed or placed beyond the reach of SARS.

The properties, estimated to be worth several million rand in total, may not be sold or transferred without authorisation, thus securing high-value assets pending the finalisation of tax assessments. The curator has been granted immediate powers to secure, control, manage and, where authorised, dispose of the assets to recover taxes due.

Acting SARS Commissioner Dr Johnstone Makhubu said corruption within the institution would be dealt with swiftly through the adoption of the most severe measures permitted by law. “Corruption by SARS employees, whether former or present, is the worst form of betrayal. It undermines public trust, damages the integrity of our systems, and strikes at the heart of the state’s ability to serve its people”.

Dr Makhubu added that the preservation order demonstrates SARS’s commitment to act decisively. “We are acting early, securing assets, and following the money. Where corruption intersects with tax and customs systems, SARS will intervene swiftly and lawfully. No one is above the law, especially those entrusted to enforce it”.

SARS’s Illicit Economy Strategy gives effect to the National Illicit Economy Disruption Programme as announced by the President of South Africa in the State of the Nation Address. The latest action protects the revenue base; combats corruption and criminality within and outside SARS; restores institutional integrity; and delivers visible consequences for non-compliance.

SARS is thankful to loyal employees and citizens who, through whistleblowing, have brought this criminality to its attention and enabled the organisation to uncover complex corruption schemes. SARS confirms that further civil, administrative, and criminal processes may follow as investigations progress.

SARS urges the public to protect the integrity of our tax and customs systems and report corruption, tax fraud, and related criminal activities through its confidential platform. “The days when employees engage in criminality and opt to resign rather than face the consequences of their wrongdoing are over. Those who think that this method will exculpate them from the consequences of their actions, must know that they’ll be pursued and will be found wherever they are”, Makhubu concluded.

For further information, contact SARS at [email protected].