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I’m one of those people who sends panicked messages to friends and co-workers whenever the South African Revenue Service (SARS) changes something on their eFiling system.

A quick shoutout to everyone who has talked me off the ledge, and ensured my tax compliance.

It’s stressful filling out a tax return, and the auto-assessment that I received last year didn’t help matters.

It took a minute to figure out that SARS was offering less than the refund I was actually due, and it all came down to one box that wasn’t checked.

Now the stakes have been upped with a new law that was promulgated on January 20.

As reported by TimesLIVE, the new set of law amendments, signed by President Ramaphosa, has given SARS the power to impose criminal sanctions on taxpayers who neglect their taxes.

In simple terms, whereas before an unintentional error might have earned you a slap on the wrist, now making certain mistakes on your returns are akin to committing a criminal offence, and one that could land you in jail for up to two years.

Those mistakes include:

• Not registering your details with SARS, or notifying them of changes to your details.
• Not appointing a representative taxpayer, or notify SARS that you have appointed one.
• Receiving compensation for helping someone with their tax returns and failing to register as a tax practitioner.
• Not submitting a return on time.
• Not retaining all relevant substantiating records.
• Failure to show up when SARS requests a meeting with you.
• Not following a directive or instruction issued by SARS.
• Failure to disclose important information to SARS.
• If you fail to pay an amount on another taxpayer’s behalf in settlement of tax debt.
• If you have a withholding obligation and you fail to withhold or deduct the tax correctly and pay SARS.

Some of those criteria come with a fairly large margin for error.

To take a weight off your shoulders, and to ensure you do everything by the book and avoid the risk of the book being thrown at you, we recommend Galbraith | Rushby, who offer tax compliance and advisory services to individuals and businesses.

With SARS on the warpath and new legislation in the mix, it’s not worth the risk of going it alone.

You can read more about the new law here.

[source:timeslive]