SARS are coming down hard on those who didn’t file their tax returns.

The South African Revenue Service has launched a three-week awareness campaign targeting businesses to encourage compliance regarding corporate income tax (CIT), value-added tax (VAT), and pay-as-you-earn (Paye).

Although tax season officially ended on October 31, those who missed the deadline are still required to submit outstanding tax returns or face penalties, reports The Citizen.

According to SARS, “taxpayers who do not submit their returns will be charged an administrative penalty, which can range from R250 to R16 000 per month, depending on the taxable income of the taxpayer”.

That’s some serious cash guaranteed to put some people out of pocket.

SARS is also emphasising that failure to submit your returns is a criminal offence.

Here’s IOL:

Sars reported last Thursday that it had achieved 30 successful convictions in VAT and Personal Income Tax fraud cases, involving R65 billion between April and September this year.

This represents a 100 percent success rate in convictions relating to the fraud cases that were investigated by Sars criminal investigators and finalised by the courts during this time, according to Mogola Makola, the chief officer of enforcement, revealed.

With SARS cracking down like this, best practice is to get an expert involved to ensure that you file on time and as accurately as possible.

Now’s the perfect time to set things up for 2019, and the team at Galbraith | Rushby offer professional tax compliance and advisory services to individuals and businesses.

In terms of their offering to businesses, Galbraith | Rushby render the level of service you would expect from a big audit firm but at the price of a small firm, while assisting you with all of your tax advisory and compliance needs.

Individuals also gain the peace of mind that comes with knowing that a professional is handling their taxes.

Because let’s get real – you really don’t want to mess with SARS when they’re on the warpath.

[source:citizen&iol]