We want a little more tax please, says the taxman
INCOME TAX
By LEIGH ROBERTS
THE taxman has a message for you: after a year's delay his new computer is up and running and ready to catch any taxpayer who fudges their return or who has thus far escaped the net.
And, oh yes, the computer will bring benefits to his dear customers, the taxpayers.
On Thursday, Pravin Gordhan, SARS' commissioner, proudly announced that the New Income Tax System (Nits) has been in action since midDecember.
There were minor problems implementing the system, he said, but these were quickly ironed out.
Indeed, Nits is already making headway in its fight to recover an expected R5-billion in extra tax revenue each year.
This extra revenue will be achieved by both broadening the tax base - ferreting out tax evaders who fell through loopholes in the old system - and by spotting inaccurate income and expenses in a taxpayer's return.
Nits is empowered to check information through a series of computer link-ups to external information sources.
The accompanying table shows the various interfaces and the information that SARS will be looking for.
Some of the interfaces are ready for action now, while others will go online in the next three months - just in time for the 1999/2000 returns. However, it may be a few months longer before interfaces into the JSE and the National Traffic Registry become operational.
Taxpayers may be concerned at the interface with banks. SARS stresses that they will not monitor movements in your bank account as this would be a violation of your constitutional rights. (If such information is needed, the SARS will first ask the taxpayer for details, and after that apply to the courts for permission.)
The Nits interface with banks will be limited to checking that IT3b information (interest payments to taxpayers from banks) makes it onto taxpayers returns. Unit trust companies will be treated similarly.
As Gordhan says, Nits is dealing with the culture of non compliance in SA.
But upstanding taxpayers will derive some benefits. Your return will be assessed in 10 days - and not the average three months under the old system. And when you change your job and request a tax directive to access your pension fund money you will get it in one day and not 17 days.
Your tax return won't get lost thanks to the bar-coding system that tracks its progress within SARS.
And Nits should make dealing with SARS less stressful because your tax history and file will be on computer. Taxpayers who owe money will receive monthly or quarterly statements detailing their debt.
The world-class system is able to keep a check on any maladministration, such as tampering of files, within the SARS.
Gordhan is proud of the fact that Nits catapults the SARS from a paper-based system into one which will electronically assess 80% of returns.
The remaining returns will be manually assessed because they fall into high-risk categories, such as farming, or because they contain unusual items, such as lump-sum receipts.
Any return that is spewed out by Nits for containing inaccurate or unverified information will be promptly handed over to the audit team.
Gordhan summed up the new era of Nits in a joke he made to journalists: "I hope you will all be happy paying a little more tax than you did before."
SARS in the new millennium
The taxman is determined not to be left behind in the move towards hi-tech operations.
Within three months, taxpayers will be able to apply for a deadline extension on their return using the Internet. Later on, taxpayers will be able to submit returns over the Net.
The data on tax returns will be input manually under the present Nits system, but a scanning facility is in the pipeline.
Later this year SARS will begin allocating each taxpayer one account and one tax number, incorporating their income tax, VAT and customs duty obligations.
An overpayment in one tax department will be offset against an underpayment in the other two.
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