The start of the filing period of the 2009 tax season for individual taxpayers and trusts began on Wednesday, the South African Revenue Service (Sars) said.

These taxpayers could now begin to submit their income tax returns to Sars electronically.

They could also request a customised, pre-populated tax return for manual submission, Sars said.

"On 9 May 2007 Sars introduced a process of significant change to the traditional way taxpayers filed their returns.

"We simplified and reduced the tax return to two pages, we tried to make it easier and simpler for taxpayers to submit, we reduced the turn-around times for processing returns with new technologies and automation and we strived to provide better service."

Sars believed these changes had delivered huge benefits to taxpayers and, at the same time, improved its ability to become more effective and to detect non-compliance and abuse.

Sars eFiling a massive improvement

It said that over the past year, 76 percent of assessments were returned to taxpayers within 48 hours of submission.

More than three million individual taxpayers now made use of Sars eFiling and had experienced a massive improvement in ease, convenience and improved turnaround times.

"We can only hope many more will convert to electronic filing this year," Sars said.

Personal Income Tax remained the biggest contributor to annual revenue collection.

"The annual tax season represents the biggest public engagement between Sars and millions of taxpayers in our country.

"It is a key indicator of the levels of awareness and compliance amongst citizens and Sars will again commit our organisation to provide the highest levels of quality services to all taxpayers who demonstrate a willingness to comply with the law."

In the current context of slower economic growth and lower revenues, Sars said it particularly wished to appeal to taxpayers to again display the kind of compliant behaviour that contributed to sustained growth of the tax base at an average of 10 percent per year for more than a decade.

Two million Income Tax Return Requests

Sars said the deadline for manual submissions was 18 September 2009, while the deadline for electronic submissions through Sars eFiling was 20 November 2009.

"Sars will this year again assist taxpayers to submit returns electronically at a Sars branch office in order to extend the benefits of automation to taxpayers," it said.

It said that last week it had posted over two million Income Tax Return Request (ITRR) forms which allowed manual taxpayers to order a customised return from Sars which contains only those income and deduction sections relevant to the taxpayer.

"Over three million taxpayers who submitted electronically last year are not required to submit an ITRR and can simply visit a branch with all their supporting documents or obtain their customised return on their eFiling profile," Sars said.

Taxpayers who earned a salary below R120 000 a year from a single employer and who had no further income and no deductions to declare, were not required to submit an income tax return.

"Sars must remind taxpayers again that it is essential to provide their correct banking details on the tax return to prevent fraud and delays.

"Due to inaccurate or incomplete banking details provided by taxpayers last year, more than 150 000 refund payments were delayed," it said.

Sapa