{"id":213167,"date":"2017-11-27T09:04:44","date_gmt":"2017-11-27T07:04:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=213167"},"modified":"2017-11-27T09:05:29","modified_gmt":"2017-11-27T07:05:29","slug":"sars-pays-r18-5-billion-to-2-22-million-taxpayers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/213167\/sars-pays-r18-5-billion-to-2-22-million-taxpayers\/","title":{"rendered":"SARS pays R18.5 billion to 2.22 million taxpayers"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>The South African Revenue Service (SARS) paid R18.5 billion to 2.22 million taxpayers at the close of tax season for non-provisional taxpayers- a 26% increase from last year, on Friday, 24 November.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>These refunds apply to returns filed for the 2016\/2017 tax year which have been submitted during Tax Season 2017 (01 July \u2013 24 November).<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>In total, R19.8 billion in refunds has been paid to individuals for this financial year to date, inclusive of prior year returns, directly contributing to household incomes and the domestic economy.<\/div>\n<p>SARS said that a total of 88.47% of tax returns were assessed within 3 seconds, and 93.63% within 24 hours.\u00a0 A total of 91.98% of taxpayers due for a refund that was not routed for audit or risk verification received their refund in less than 72 hours.<\/p>\n<div>During Tax Season 2017, SARS said it prevented R2.7 billion in fraudulent claims in the Personal Income Tax environment, saving the fiscus of potential revenue loss. This was a R900 million (50%) improvement from last year where R1.8 billion in fraudulent claims was prevented during the same period (Tax Season).<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The revenue service received 5.67 million returns, inclusive of returns filed for prior years, by Friday, 24 November 2017, which marked the close of tax season for non-provisional taxpayers.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Provisional taxpayers have until 31 January 2017 to file their tax returns via eFiling.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The submissions received comprise the following:<\/div>\n<ul>\n<li>4.289 million returns filed for the relevant tax year, 2016\/2017, which sees an increase of 3.1% from last year\u2019s figure of 4.16 million.<\/li>\n<li>1.28 million returns filed for prior years\u00a0 &#8211; 1.19% less than last year\u2019s figure of 1.48 million.<\/li>\n<li>44 782 submissions by trusts for the 2016\/17 tax year.<\/li>\n<li>53 054 submissions by trusts for prior years.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div>A total 94% of expected returns from individuals were submitted on time, exceeding last year\u2019s rate of 91%. The returns expected are informed by last year\u2019s submissions and IRP5 information from employers, excluding provisional taxpayers.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The introduction of e-DNA ensured the biometric authentication of taxpayers and the increased security of personal information. This has significantly reduced the payment of refunds into fraudulent accounts.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/finance\/210817\/the-sars-share-option-that-offers-a-100-tax-deduction\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The SARS share option that offers a 100% tax deduction<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The South African Revenue Service (SARS) paid R18.5 billion to 2.22 million taxpayers at the close of tax season for non-provisional taxpayers- a 26% increase from last year, on Friday, 24 November.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":80497,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-213167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=213167"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213167\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":213175,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213167\/revisions\/213175"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}