What information is your company required to provide SARS?

Did you know?

LAW obligates your company to provide SARS with certain information in the form of:

  • Income tax returns
  • VAT returns
  • Provisional Tax returns
  • Employer declarations

How?

This is done on E-filing. SARS E-Filing is a free, online system for the submission of returns and declarations, and other related services. This free service allows taxpayers, tax practitioners and businesses to register, free of charge, and submit returns and declarations, make payments, and perform several other interactions with SARS on a secure online platform.

One of our core responsibilities as your tax practitioners will be ensuring your compliance at SARS, primarily through the accurate submission of your tax returns as they become due.

Oh no!

This duty can only be delegated to us if your company is registered for all the necessary tax types and if your company has a registered representative.

Before you ask, let me explain what these are!

What is a tax type?

Like the name implies, a tax type is a type of tax that you or your business are registered for. The most common version of this is income tax, other tax types include VAT, and PAYE.

The tax types you or your business are registered for are all listed on your e-filing profile. By transferring (“lending”) one of these tax types to a third party you give them a portal into your e-filing profile so they can perform the function you require them to.

We will perform the duties you have delegated to us (tax returns/loading payments/lodging disputes and deferment requests among others) via our own profile.

What is a registered representative?

A registered representative is a designated person who SARS can consider to be your, or your business entity’s, appointed primary contact. All actions carried out in this capacity are deemed to have been done by the owner of a tax profile. For companies, the registered representative is the public officer.

Why does SARS need this?

There are two basic reasons why SARS requires this:

Accountability! SARS requires a person to be accountable for the tax affairs of each tax profile.

Communication! SARS requires a person to communicate with, and to authorise tax activities on an e-filing profile.

What responsibilities does the registered representative have?

Briefly, the tax representative is responsible for the tax affairs of a tax profile. This includes the submission of provisional tax returns, registration of necessary tax types, PAYE related declarations, annual income tax returns, VAT returns (if applicable), notification of address changes and acceptance of notices served against the tax profile.

The representative can appoint one or more third parties, typically an accountant, employee, or administrator, to process these functions on their behalf, but is responsible to oversee that it has been done.

The representative is also responsible for ensuring that the channels of communication SARS uses to contact the entity remain open. If their email address, phone number or physical address changes they must update their representative registration.

Risks

Risks follow if your tax types are not active. If you have not nominated a registered representative. We will not have full functionality on E-Filing.

This will result in us not be able to see which returns are outstanding. We will also not be able to submit any submissions, causing you to be non-compliant with SARS.

To remedy the situation, contact us to assist in registering your tax types or updating your tax representative.