FISA received the following communications from SARS:
- A letter from Mr Mark Kingon, Head of Stakeholder Relations at SARS. The letter reached FISA too late for last week’s FISA Focus Weekly.
Dear Stakeholders
As you may be aware, the current technology version of SARS’ website (WWW.SARS.GOV.ZA) will as of now no longer be supported by Microsoft. Microsoft has though assured SARS that the existing website will continue to operate.
As a result, the SARS Technical Team has been redeveloping the website on a new platform in the cloud as recommended by Microsoft. This is a like for like replacement on the new platform (no new feature functionality will be included). There has been close collaboration with Microsoft and a Microsoft nominated partner, which will continue post go live for support purposes.
The website is already technically in production.
However, we believe that it would be prudent rather than to switch to the new site immediately, that we allow a few days for key stakeholders eg: trusted tax practitioners and individuals to log onto the new platform and comment. To this end, they can use the URL: NEW.SARS.GOV.ZA. Very importantly don’t use WWW or HTTPS before the address.
The current plan would be to switch the existing URL to point to the new technology platform on Friday night (2021-04-16), pending your go ahead.
Post the go live, the SARS.GOV.ZA URL will no longer be used and the WWW.SARS.GOV.ZA will point to the new technology platform.
Please send any feedback to: Sphokazi Ntsendwana (SNtsendwana@sars.gov.za) in my office
Regards
Mark Kingon
- A letter from Stakeholder Management at SARS about employer filing season.
Dear Stakeholders
Employers who correctly declared the SDL payable for the months of May to August 2020 as zero, due to the COVID-19 SDL holiday announced during 2020 in terms of the Disaster Management Tax Relief Measures for this period, should please ensure that the zero values for these months are correctly declared on the –
- February 2021 EMP 501 Reconciliation Declaration, and/or
- 2021 IRP5/IT3(a) tax certificates submitted to SARS and issued to employees.
If the SDL for these 4 months are overstated on the February 2021 EMP501 and/or 2021 IRP5/IT3(a) certificates (i.e. effectively ignoring the COVID-19 SDL holiday), the Reconciliation process will automatically increase the SDL payable for February 2021 and possibly resulting in outstanding debt on the SDL account as well as late payment penalties and interest being charged.
Affected employers are required to correct the SDL values reflected on the EMP501 and/or IRP5/IT3(a) certificates and to resubmit the corrected reconciliation documents to SARS. It is suggested that where affected employers used an electronic payroll, the payroll supplier be contacted for assistance to correct the EMP501 and/or certificates, where necessary.
Please share this information as widely as possible with your members.
Kind regards