The South African Revenue Services (SARS) developed the e-filing platform to help make it easier for taxpayers to submit their returns, make payments to SARS, and get a tax clearance certificate. By using the SARS e-filing platform you will have a place where all your correspondences with SARS are kept. If you register as a Small Business Corporation, you will be able to enjoy added tax deductions.
How to register for e-filing
- Do you have a tax number for you as an individual? This number may have been created for by a previous employer or you can find it on your IRP5. If you don’t have either of these documents and are unsure of your tax number then you can send a query to SARS by going to this page. Here you can fill in your details and under “query type” select “what is my tax number?” and they should send you an email with your tax number.
- Go to the SARS e-filing website and click on “register now” and follow the prompts to register as an individual on the e-filing site.
- If you are a sole proprietor, you will not need to do anything more as you will register your company’s income as part of personal income but if your business is a private or public company you will need to register it on SARS. Make sure you have the following details available before you start the next step:
- The company name
- Address and contact number for the company
- SARS tax number for the company which you should have received when you registered with the CIPC.
- The company registration number which you received from the CIPC.
- The company’s banking details
- The year end of the company
Now that we have these details we can move to step four.
- Log in to SARS e-filing with your username and password.
- When you are on the landing page click on the three dots next to the word “individual” at the top of the screen and then click on “portfolio management”.
- Next click on “add new portfolio” in the top right-hand corner. This should open a pop-up which says “add portfolio” at the top. Fill in the details and in the dropdown menu select “organisation” and then click on “add portfolio”. You should now have two portfolios on the portfolio management screen. One should say “individual” and the other one “organisation”.
- Now click on “go to portfolio” next to the word “organisation” where you see the two portfolios listed.
- At the top of the screen click on “organisation” and then click on “register new”. This will open up a form for you to complete about your business. You will then need to look on the left and click on “Organisation Tax Types” and select the taxes which your organisation needs to pay.
- Finally, scroll to the bottom of the screen and submit the document to SARS for review. It should take 48 hours for them to activate the account. If this doesn’t happen then check that there is not any outstanding supporting documentation which SARS has requested.
Remember if anything is unclear with your taxes you should contact SARS directly or your tax consultant. We hope this will help you on your tax journey.
Proudly brought to you by the NSBC