Insert some joke about how everyone hates paying taxes, and thinking about it gives us all a headache.

Bit of a necessary evil though, isn’t it?

SARS announced on Monday that they will be shortening the 2018 Tax Season by three weeks, meaning that “non-provisional taxpayers (most taxpayers fall into this category) and provisional taxpayers who file at a branch will have to submit their tax returns by October 31, 2018”.

If you’re the type of person who likes to leave things to the last minute, that should act as a boot up the backside.

Moneyweb with what the change means for you and me:

Acting Sars commissioner Mark Kingon said the shorter filing season would allow additional time for Sars, taxpayers and the tax fraternity to deal with return verifications before most taxpayers go on holiday in December…

Sharon Smulders, associate professor at the Department of Financial Intelligence at Unisa, said it was possible to meet the earlier filing deadline, but warned that many taxpayers procrastinate and that tax practitioners might come under a lot of pressure as a result.

Tax practitioners would need to educate their clients to provide information earlier than usual, she said…

[Keith Engel, CEO of the South African Institute of Tax Professionals] said the general view seems to be that most people would be able to meet the earlier deadline. The only issue was that a lot of people were visiting Sars branches unnecessarily.

If Sars could not relieve the pressure on its branches with new initiatives, the shorter tax season could exacerbate the problem.

Well ain’t that a thing?

The 2018 tax season will start on July 1, as per normal, but you best not sit on your returns for too long because the clock is ticking.

Or you can just pawn all your tax headaches off to the professionals, like we do with Galbraith | Rushby.

Auditing, tax advisory and compliance, accounting and bookkeeping, secretarial and payroll – they do it all so we don’t have to.

You can’t live the holiday and do your own accounts – oh, the horror.

Let the pros over tick those boxes, good people.

[source:moneyweb]