What’s New at SARS

21 October 2021 – The Taxpayer and Trader Education, and SMME segment will host a webinar on Turnover Tax for SMMEs to help taxpayers to comply with their tax obligations.

We invite you to join this webinar:

Date: Thursday, 21 October 2021
Time: 17:00-19:00
YouTube: https://youtu.be/BsCGWXwQuIg

20 October 2021 – Value-Added Tax Act, 1991

• Binding General Ruling 57 – Whether the term “consideration” includes an amount of transfer duty for the purposes of calculating a notional input tax deduction on the acquisition of second-hand fixed property

20 October 2021 – Income Tax Act, 1962: Draft Guide to the Voluntary Disclosure Programme

Due date for public comment: 10 December 2021

20 October 2021 – The Commissioner must approve the valuation of shares held by the deceased person in unlisted companies/close corporations or shareblock companies at the time of death.

For the valuations to be done, valuation packs together with the Valuation Pack Checklist, must be provided to the Share Valuations Team at the following address: [email protected].

Please note:

• Emails should be kept to a size of 2MB per email. Emails should be numbered if send in batches to allow SARS to verify that all emails are received.
• Shares/ members’ interests that are bequeathed to the surviving spouse and not sold by the estate, would no longer be required to be approved by SARS. (This will only be the case if the full portion of the shares/members’ interest that the deceased person held is bequeathed to the surviving spouse in terms of an approved Will or intestate succession. Should any portion go to another heir or the spouse obtains it in terms of a re-distribution agreement, then approval by SARS will be required.)

The requirements for each type of valuation pack are as follows:

Ordinary shares/Member’s interest

• Valuation of the shares/member’s interest.
• Should the shares be in a holding company of a group, then the consolidated financial statements should also be included.
• The annual financial statements as close as possible to date of death.
• The annual financial statements for the 2 years prior to date of death.
• Copy of the letter of executorship, (as well as a letter indicating authority to deal with SARS in this regard or power of attorney given by the executor/executrix.)
• Contact details of the executor/executrix.
• If there is fixed property in the company/close corporation, then a REV246 form needs to be completed and attached.
• If Patents in a company/close corporation, then a valuation thereof should be attached.

Preference Shares

• Copy of the Memorandum, Articles and other documents that sets out the rights attached to the preference and other shares of the company.
• Copy of the financial statements of the company as close as possible to the date of death.

Loan accounts

Please note that loan accounts are not approved by SARS and should be submitted to the Master of the High Court only.

For more information, see the Estate Duty webpage.

19 October 2021 – The latest Tax Practitioner Connect Newsletter issue 26 deals with a few topics including Commissioner appeals to non-compliant practitioners to become compliant, Task team established to combat fraudulent alterations of taxpayer eFiling profiles, SARS to commence with reporting unlawful use of trademark, Posting of VAT201 returns discontinued and SARS ups the ante regarding PAYE non-compliance.  For this and more, see the Tax Practitioner Connect Newsletter issue 26.

19 October 2021 – Please note that the Pre-Production (Trade Test) platforms for both Secure File Gateway and Connect:Direct will be temporarily offline for planned maintenance between 17:00 on Tuesday 19 October and 07:00 on Wednesday 20 October 2021.

Please do not submit any files in the Pre-Production (Trade Test) environment during this time, as they will not be received or processed. Files already in the system will be paused and will continue processing upon conclusion of the maintenance. For more information  see the Third Party Data Submissions Platform webpage.

18 October 2021 – The South African Revenue Service (SARS) today welcomed Ms Natasha Singh, a chartered accountant with more than 20 years’ experience, as Director: High Wealth Individual (HWI) Segment. Commissioner Kieswetter introduced Ms Singh to colleagues and staff at the Woodmead offices where the new unit will be co-located with the Large Business & International (LB&I) Segment.

See the full media statement here.

18 October 2021 – Additional Drawings for RFP29/2021: Appointment of an Electrical Contractor for the installation of power redundancy at SARS Brooklyn Main Data Centre, have been published.

18 October 2021 – The Notice of Registration functionality on eFiling was enhanced.  The current Notice of Registration functionality for PIT and VAT has now been extended to include CIT, PAYE and Trusts. eFilers can now access their Notices of Registration for all tax types online. Follow these easy steps:

For Organisations:

• Step 1 – Login to http://www.sarsefiling.co.za/
• Step 2 – Go to the Organizations main menu
• Step 3 – Click SARS Registered details on the side menu
• Step 4 – Select Notice of Registration
• Step 5 – Select the relevant tax type: VAT or CIT or PAYE or Trusts

For Individuals:

• Step 1 – Login to http://www.sarsefiling.co.za/
• Step 2 – Click on the Notice of Registration icon on the top right side of the screen
• Step 3 – Click on Request new or view

For more information on eFiling features, see our eFiling system webpage.

18 October 2021 – RFP28/2021 – Appointment of Service Provider for Printing, Labelling and Packaging of Communication Material closing date is extended from 18 October 2021 to 26 October 2021.

18 October 2021 – A new [email protected]™ Employer version was released. The release notes and changes are:

• Enhancement to the Summary Report to distinguish between active and cancelled certificates
• Updated the wording on the Declaration page from Tax Year to Period of Reconciliation for relevant drop-down menus
• Adjustment to the Notification Centre to allow more than one instance of a letter type per Tax Year
• Adjustment to validation for source code 3020 to align with the SARS PAYE BRS
• Adjustment to validation for source code 3263 to align with the SARS PAYE BRS

18 October 2021 – Customs & Excise Act, 1964: Amendment to rules under section 120 – Substitution of the Automotive Production and Development Programme (APDP) quarterly accounts (DAR223)

Publication details will be made available on 22 October 2021

15 October 2021 – The South African Revenue Service (SARS), through its Customs division, seized dried abalone worth R1.6-million hidden in a trailer of a taxi at the Lebombo border. The intention was to illegally import the abalone into South Africa from Mozambique. The abalone was packed in 21 boxes and weighed 460 kg.

For the full media release, click here.

15 October 2021 – Customs & Excise Act, 1964: Draft rule amendments under section 120(1)(mC) to insert rule relating to advance foreign exchange import payments

Due date for public comment: 5 November 2021

14 October 2021 – RFP12/2021 – Provision of Employee Engagement Survey for SARS

• Non-compulsory virtual briefing session 
• Service agreement

14 October 2021 – RFP26/2021:  Provision of Employee Health and Wellness Services.

13 October 2021 – RFP12/2021:  Provision of Employee Engagement Survey for SARS.

12 October 2021 – Pietermaritzburg branch is closed today, Tuesday, 12 October 2021, due to water issues. Our apologies for the inconvenience.

11 October 2021 – Calculation of national currencies for the various trade agreements were published on the Rules of Origin webpage under Customs:

• Calculation of national currencies for the SADC-EU-Economic partnership agreement (EPA)
• Calculation of national currencies for the SACUM-UK-Economic partnership agreement (EPA)
• Calculation of national currencies for the SACU-EFTA trade agreement

11 October 2021 – REMINDER! Third Party Data Bi-Annual Submissions: 1 September 2021 – 31 October 2021: Production Submissions ONLY 14 DAYS to the DUE DATE.
You are encouraged to make your submissions ahead of the due date to avoid last minute challenges and potential delays.

In this submissions period, we are implementing the updated IT3 business requirement specification (version 3.0.0-32) that is effective for reporting due 31 October 2021 onward. 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 the SARS Third Party Data Submissions Platform webpage to be kept up to date on changes and communication in relation to SARS 3^rd Party Data.