Lehae la SARS, 299 Bronkhorst Street, Muckleneuk, 0181 Private Bag X932, Pretoria, 0001, South Africa Tel.: +27 422 4000, Fax.: +27 422 5181
Dear Vendor
IMPROVED VALUE-ADDED TAX PROCESSES AND PROCEDURES
Since April 2011 SARS has been introducing changes to Value-Added Tax (VAT) that are aimed at improving its systems, simplifying processes and enabling compliance. The first changes to VAT were implemented in April 2011 and included the following: • The introduction of an enhanced VAT201 Declaration with additional fields for demographic information and the declarant’s signature • A unique 10-digit Payment Reference Number (PRN) which links the actual payment made to the payment declared on the VAT201 Declaration for a specific period • The discontinuation of the automatic issuing of VAT201 Declarations and the mandatory requirement for vendors to request their VAT201 Declarations from SARS. As of May 2011 the following improvements and enhancements have been implemented: • The introduction of a Request for Correction functionality to enable vendors to revise their VAT201 Declarations • A new SARS Risk Profiling System which will evaluate all VAT 201 Declarations submitted. As of 1 July 2011, the following change will be implemented: • The discontinuation of all manual debit order arrangements currently registered with SARS for payment of VAT 201 declarations. Discontinuation of Manual Debit Orders Debit order arrangements currently registered with SARS for the filing of manual VAT201 returns will be discontinued with effect from 1 July 2011. No new debit order applications will be accepted for the manual filing of VAT201 forms. Clients that would like to apply and/or continue to use the debit order function are required to register for eFiling which is free, secure, more convenient, reliable and accurate. The following payment methods are available to clients: o eFiling o Electronically using the Internet o At a branch of