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2025 Legal and Policy

Legal and Policy - 21 August 2025

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SARS

  • 14 August 2025 – The August Issue of the Monthly Tax Digest is now available. In this issue we give you tips on at how to file your Personal Income Tax and Provisional Tax returns easily.

· Tariff headings 8716.90.30 and 8716.90.40 were added to the P&R list.

· The following tariff headings require Veterinary Import Permit:

    • 4101.20.10
    • 4101.20.90
    • 4101.50.10
    • 4101.50.90
    • 4101.90.10
    • 4101.90.90
  • 15 August 2025 – The SMME Connect August edition is now available. In this edition we review the range of special events held nationwide to celebrate the 9th International Small Medium and Micro Enterprises (SMME) Day. We also look at Turnover Tax, Provisional Tax and Filing Season 2025.

· Draft Taxation Laws Amendment Bill, 2025

    • Draft Explanatory Memorandum on the Draft Taxation Laws Amendment Bill, 2025

· Draft Tax Administration Laws Amendment Bill, 2025

    • Draft Memorandum on Objects of Tax Administration Laws Amendment Bill, 2025

· Draft Domestic Reverse Charge Regulations, 2025

· Draft Export Regulations, 2025

    • Draft Explanatory Memorandum on the Draft Export Regulations, 2025

Due date for comment: 12 September 2025

  • 18 August 2025 – The PRN is required when a payment is made to SARS by EFT or at a bank. The PRN enables a taxpayer to designate exactly what is being paid/settled, i.e. the specific period and/or tax type and enables SARS to automatically allocate a payment to the correct tax type and period. A PRN must be 19-digits long.

The PRN for Income Tax starts with your tax reference number then a ‘T’ and eight zeros, e.g. 1234567899T00000000. Top Tip: You don’t need to use a SARS bank account number to make payment, you can simply select from a standard drop-down of pre-loaded beneficiary IDs provided by the bank on your Internet banking. If you are making payment at a bank branch, the teller should select the SARS preloaded beneficiary. For Personal Income Tax, the SARS preloaded beneficiary to use is ‘SARS-ITA’.

Where to find your PRN:

On eFiling:

· If you owe money to SARS, the Payment Advice on eFiling is pre-populated with a unique Payment Reference Number (PRN). Please refer to your Statement of Account

· A Payment Advice Notice (PAN) is a remittance advice used when making payments to SARS. A PAN can be generated via SARS eFiling under the “General Unpaid” or “Payment Advice Notice” functions. If paying for multiple tax types (e.g., VAT and PAYE), separate PANs must be generated

By using SARS SOQS:

· SARS has implemented a new feature on the Send an Online Query System (SOQS) where taxpayers can request their Payment Reference Number (PRN) in order to help with payments to SARS.

· See What is my Payment Reference Number on the Send an Online Query System (SOQS) webpage.

These are the tax types that will be covered by the PRN feature on SOQS:

· Income Tax

· Provisional Tax

· VAT (limited to period PRNs)

· PAYE/SDL/UIF (limited to period PRNs)

· Dividends Tax

See the updated SARS Online Query System (SOQS) Guide here.

  • 18 August 2025 – The state provides state warehouses for the safekeeping of goods. These are managed by Customs. The purpose of this list of unentered goods is to notify the importer, exporter and any other person that has interest in the goods that the goods have been taken up into the State warehouse and if they remain unentered they will be disposed in accordance with the provisions of the Customs & Excise Act.

See the latest Customs Weekly List of Unentered Goods here.

  • 19 August 2025 – The latest scam is an email from an address similar to what SARS is using for eFiling notifications i.e. noreply@sars.gov.za. The subject line of the email is ‘PROCESS QUOTE LETTER’ and it asks the recipient to ‘Please kindly process sars letter for attention’ linking to a fraudulent website. Please don’t click on the link, it’s a phishing website asking for your personal details.

If unsure, always hover over the link as in the image below to see whether it’s a strange website name. Or, if in doubt, look at our Scams webpage with the latest examples and what to do if you receive a suspicious email.

  • 19 August 2025 – The following updates apply to the completion of ITR12 returns:

· Antedated salary/pension – From the 2025 year of assessment onward, if source code 3623/3673 (for ‘antedated salary/pension’ paid for past years of assessment) is completed in the income section of the IRP5 certificate, the directive number will be mandatory.

· Exempt Local Dividends – Source code 4306 will only display next to the ‘Exempt Local Dividends’ field from the 2025 year of assessment onwards

· Exempt Foreign Dividends – Source code 4307 will only display next to the ‘Exempt Foreign Dividends’ field from the 2025 year of assessment onwards

· Capital Gains Tax – if a taxpayer is in a partnership and there was a disposal of partnership assets during the year of assessment, the taxpayer is only required to declare his/her own portion of the proceeds and base cost on the ITR12 return tax return.

· Return Type for Foreign Nationals – On 26 July 2025, a system change was implemented to issue a ‘resident’ ITR12 by default to all taxpayers classified as foreign nationals. If a foreign national requires a “non-resident” ITR12 return to be issued, the Non-resident Tax Return Type icon on the SARS Online Query System (SOQS) function must be used to request SARS to issue the correct return type for completion.

See the updated IT-AE-36-G05 – Comprehensive Guide to the ITR12 Income Tax Return for Individuals – External Guide for more information.

  • 19 August 2025 – A reminder to keep an eye on the Filing Season 2025 webpage as we are publishing useful information from time-to-time.

These short and easy-to-read leaflets will help on a variety of topics:

NATIONAL TREASURY

ATAF

AuthorLegal and Policy
DivisionTax
Categories
Legal and Policy
Date21 August 2025