The South African Revenue Service (SARS) has recently announced that it will be imposing penalties on certain taxpayers for failing to respond to auto-assessments.
SARS announcement will apply to the following two groups of taxpayers.
- Taxpayers that were selected for auto assessment and failed to accept, decline, or edit and then file their return after SARS issued an original based on estimated return (auto).
- All provisional and non-provisional taxpayers that were not auto assessed and submitted a return post-filing season and pre-imposition of the recurring admin penalty.
The revenue service says that like the Personal Income Tax (PIT) outstanding return recurring admin penalty, the PIT once-off admin penalty can be adjusted or cancelled.
SARS said, “As part of the admin penalty process, SARS will adjust the admin penalty amount if there’s any change to the taxable income where a Once-Off Admin Penalty was already imposed”.
SARS further explained,
- The change in the taxable income may be because of a revised declaration, a dispute (NOO/NOA) against the rejected or edited return and is allowed or partially allowed leading to the taxable income being different to the initial taxable income utilised to determine the once-off admin penalty amount.
- A penalty adjustment letter will be issued to the taxpayer to inform the Taxpayer of the admin penalty adjustment.
SARS have reassured taxpayers that if it is determined that they erroneously imposed the once-off Admin Penalty on you, SARS will cancel the Admin Penalty transactions and related debt and update your admin penalty account.
