Frequently asked questions regarding your 2022 annual tax submission

The tax filing season dates are shown below and are also available on the SARS website, www.sars.gov.za. *Please note that if you cannot file electronically, you will need to make an appointment to complete your tax return at a SARS branch.

SARS will auto-assess a significant number of individual taxpayers, based on information received from employers, financial institutions, medical schemes, retirement annuity fund administrators and third-party data providers.

Refer to the SARS website for further information on the 2022 auto-assessment process.

SARS requires all individuals, including minors, who earned taxable income for the 2021/2022 tax year above the following thresholds to register for income tax:

• Below age 65:                       R87 300
• Age 65 to below 75:             R135 150
• Age 75 and over:                   R151 100 

You can register for an income tax number by completing the eFiling registration process. To view the requirements to register for a tax number, please visit the ‘How do I register for tax’ section of the SARS website. 

SARS charges non-compliance penalties for each month that your return is outstanding. If you do not submit your income tax return and pay your penalty, SARS may deduct the penalty from your salary or bank account.

To verify the information that taxpayers provide to SARS and to pre-populate certain sections on taxpayers’ income tax returns, SARS requires third parties (including Allan Gray) to report certain information. We report the following client information to SARS twice a year: 

• Investment income (e.g. dividends and interest)
• Capital gains/losses
• Living annuity income
• Contributions to retirement annuity funds
• Transfers out from retirement funds
• Contributions, withdrawals, other income, transfers and returns earned on tax-free investment accounts
• Pay As You Earn (PAYE) tax deducted on retirement fund and living annuity lump sum payments (as well as instances where no PAYE was deducted)
• Information required under FATCA/CRS (once a year, see below)

Tax certificates for the tax year ended 28 February 2022 will be distributed and available online by the end of June 2022. All tax certificates will be distributed to clients before the tax filing season opens.

Taxpayers are now able to view third-party data certificates that were submitted to SARS by financial service providers on their behalf via their eFiling profile. For a detailed explanation on how to access third-party data certificate information, refer to the 'How to view submitted third party data returns or data files via eFiling' guide on the SARS website.

You are required to declare the contributions, transfers, other income and withdrawals made as well as the net return (growth over the course of the tax year, net of any fees, if applicable) on all of your tax-free investments, as found on your IT3(s) tax certificate.

The values for interest, dividends, other income and capital gains/losses will reflect as zero. This is because your Allan Gray Tax-Free Investment Account is an investment policy issued by Allan Gray Life Limited (Allan Gray Life) and Allan Gray Life owns all of the underlying investments. As a result, all income earned (interest, dividends and other income) and capital gains/losses accrue to Allan Gray Life for tax purposes and not directly to you. These zero values will be indicated in the applicable fields on your tax return.

SARS has introduced a new source code which relates to ‘Other income’. As a result, code 4257 has been added to your IT3(s) tax certificate.

There are two ways in which income may arise in a taxpayer’s hands – it may be received by or it may accrue to the taxpayer. The date of accrual of a lump sum from a retirement fund or living annuity determines when the amount will be included in the taxpayer’s gross income, i.e. the tax year in which the taxpayer will be assessed.

This means that if you submitted an exit instruction for a retirement fund or living annuity in the 2021/2022 tax year (year of assessment), but the tax directive was captured in the 2022/2023 tax year (i.e. the transaction date falls within the 2023 tax year), you will need to declare the lump sum amount in your 2021/2022 tax return.

However, your IRP5/IT3(a) information will not pre-populate on your tax return, and you will need to declare the information by manually completing the details. Please note that after your transaction was finalised, you would have received a tax certificate which you can use to help you complete your tax return.

This is applicable to investments in the Allan Gray Pension Preservation Fund, Provident Preservation Fund, Umbrella Pension Fund, Umbrella Provident Fund, Living Annuity and Retirement Annuity Fund.

We have changed our reporting to align to your income tax return on eFiling. Consequently, we have noted exempt local dividends separately from exempt foreign dividends.

The above amounts are the gross dividend amounts that have already been taxed and which SARS requires to be completed in separate fields on your income tax return. SARS has not allocated source codes to these fields and they should not be confused with gross foreign dividends which are subject to normal tax and are stated next to source code 4216. 

The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) Common Reporting Standard (CRS) were introduced to facilitate and standardise the sharing of information between tax authorities around the world. In doing so, they aim to prevent investors from evading tax by housing assets and income in favourable tax jurisdictions. To comply, we will provide SARS with the following information once a year for investors who have indicated that they are active in countries other than South Africa: 

• Dividend and interest amounts earned
• Withdrawal amounts
• Certain static information e.g. foreign tax identification numbers 

This affects investors in the following products: 

• Allan Gray Unit Trust Account
• Allan Gray Local Investment Platform Account
• Allan Gray Offshore Investment Platform Account
• Allan Gray Endowment Policy
• Allan Gray Tax-Free Investment Account (FATCA only)

For more information regarding your tax submissions, please contact SARS directly on 0800 007 277 or visit www.sars.gov.za.