Each tax season, SARS auto-assesses millions of individual taxpayers using data it already holds, IRP5s from employers, medical aid certificates, retirement annuity contributions and investment income certificates from banks. If you've been auto-assessed, you'll get an SMS or email, and the big question is simple: accept it, or file anyway? The wrong choice can cost you a refund, or land you with an understatement problem later.
How Auto-Assessment Works
SARS pre-populates your return from third-party data and issues an assessment without you filing anything. If a refund is due, it's typically paid within about 72 hours of the assessment. If you owe SARS, you're expected to pay by the due date on the assessment. If you do nothing and the auto-assessment is accurate, that's generally the end of it, no filing required.
When Accepting Is Fine
Doing nothing is usually safe when your tax life is simple:
- One employer, one IRP5, no side income.
- No claimable expenses beyond what's already in the data (medical aid and RA contributions usually pull through automatically).
- No rental income, crypto trades, freelance work or capital gains.
When You Must File Instead
You should reject the auto-assessment and file a full return if anything is missing. Common examples:
- Side income, rental property, freelancing, commission, crypto gains. SARS not pre-populating it does not mean SARS doesn't know about it; omitting income is an understatement that can attract severe penalties.
- Deductions SARS can't see, home office expenses, wear-and-tear on personal equipment used for work, out-of-pocket medical expenses, donations with Section 18A certificates, travel against a car allowance (logbook required).
- Wrong or duplicated third-party data, it happens more than you'd think, particularly with retirement fund and medical aid data.
To correct it, open the return on eFiling, edit it, and file before the deadline shown on your assessment notice. Once you edit and file, the auto-assessment is replaced by your submitted return.
The Business Owner Angle
If you run a company or earn provisional income, auto-assessment doesn't cover your situation properly. Directors with travel allowances, owners drawing mixed salary and dividends, and anyone with rental portfolios should treat the auto-assessment as a starting point only, the pre-populated data almost never reflects your full position, and accepting it can lock in an incorrect assessment you then have to dispute.
PayStream prepares and files personal returns for business owners as part of our accounting plans, making sure every legitimate deduction is claimed and every income source is properly declared.