Employee Tax refers to the tax that gets deducted by an employer from an employee’s salary or wages. The process of deducting or withholding tax from remuneration as it is earned by an employee is commonly referred to as PAYE (Pay As You Earn)
According to South Africa’s tax authority, SARS, an employer is required by law to register with SARS within 21 business days of becoming an employer unless none of the employees are liable for income tax.
Once employees have been registered, the amounts deducted or withheld must be paid by the employer to SARS on a monthly basis.
Employee income tax must be paid within seven days after the end of the month during which the amount was deducted.
However, if the last day for payment falls on a public holiday or weekend, the payment must be made on the last business day before the public holiday or weekend.
Here’s how to register for PAYE on eFiling:
- Logon to eFiling
- Scroll to the SARS Registered Details functionality: On the Individual portfolio, select Home to find the SARS Registered Details functionality. On the Tax Practitioner and Organisation eFiling portfolios, the SARS Registered Details functionality is under the Organisations menu tab.
- Select SARS Registered, then select SARS Maintain SARS Registered Details.
- The Maintain SARS Registered Details screen will display. Select I Agree to confirm that you are authorised to perform maintenance functions of the registered details of the company or individual.
- Select the Payrolls taxes menu item under My tax products > Revenue on the left menu.
- Select Add new product registration to register new or additional PAYE: A message will display to indicate that demographic information is prepopulated on the RAV01 form. You will be able to provide additional addresses and contact details if the existing demographic details are not used for PAYE.
- The RAV01 form will open with the Payroll Taxes Registration Options container:
- PAYE status: Would you like to register for PAYE? (Y/N)
- If you select “Y”, the PAYE container will display, indicating the mandatory fields.
- If you select “N”, the PAYE container will not be displayed.
- SDL status: Would you like to register for SDL? (Y/N)
- If you select “Y”, the Skill Development Levy and Particulars of Exemptions containers will display, indicating the mandatory fields.
- If you select “N”, the SDL container will not be displayed.
- UIF status: Will change to “New Registration” once you have indicated that you want to register for PAYE.
- If you select the business activity code field, the PAYE Business Activity box will display to select the Business Activity Code applicable to your business.
- Select the “Ok” button to continue after selections have been made.
- Deactivate – this tick box will be disabled and the representative of the entity or the entity themselves, in the case of an individual, will be required to visit a SARS branch to initiate a request for deactivation.
Employers can use a range of payment methods in order to make employee tax payments. These include, eFiling, Electronic payments, (EFT) as well as payments at a bank.
All payments can be made at any ABSA, Capitec, FNB, Nedbank or Standard Bank branch.
SARS has reminded clients that manual forms of payments will no longer be accepted. Any Cheques posted / delivered to SARS will also be returned to the client.
