SARS Refund

When will SARS pay my tax refund?

Immediately after asking ‘how do I submit a tax return?’ most taxpayers are left asking ‘when will SARS pay my tax refund?’.  While GRTax isn’t directly involved in the payments of tax refunds, we can offer a bit of reassurance by providing you with a timeline of events.Once you have completed and submitted your annual tax return SARS will issue you with a document called the ITA34. On the first page of the ITA34 you can confirm if you owe SARS money, or if they will issue you with a refund. If a refund is owed to you, it will be electronically processed and will reflect in your account in approximately 2 to 3 days after you’re issued with the ITA34. (Depending if you’ve been audited or not)

If you haven’t received your refund for more than a week after receiving the ITA34, then there could be a few reasons as to why.

You’re being audited
Being audited means that SARS wants to confirm that the information you provided on your return matches all original documents used to complete the return. There is nothing to worry about if you have submitted your return with truthful amounts and documents. Once the audit is complete, SARS has up to 21 working days to issue a letter of completion and will generate a second ITA34 document to update your refund status. Once you have received this letter, you can expect a refund within 7 business days. – we need to amend this as SARS will only generate a second IT34 if SARS has disallowed any deduction or added any additional income not submitted on the ITR12.

You have outdated or incomplete banking information
SARS would typically notify you if there are any issues but if your banking details are invalid, outdated or incomplete, they may not be aware. If there are any delays, it would help to contact them to update your details immediately.

You have outstanding returns
If you have not kept your annual tax returns up to date, SARS might withhold your tax refund until all your returns have been submitted. Avoid this hassle by submitting your tax returns every year.

You may owe SARS money
If you have an outstanding amount payable to SARS you may not receive your entire tax refund. They may deduct your balance from your refund amount or they may refuse to pay your refund until all outstanding balances are paid. Make use of GRTax to submit your tax returns every year and avoid this hassle. Contact us today.