The introduction of the electronic form is one of this year's innovations on the road to easy tax returns.
The development of eFiling for individual income tax returns has come a long way since 2001, when the South African Revenue Service (SARS) was looking at registering five providers that would charge you to use their sites to file your tax return.
Luckily for us, SARS has since decided to run its own eFiling site at no (direct) charge to us.
Last year, SARS introduced eFiling for individual tax returns and for the first time allowed eFilers to submit returns without any supporting documents.
After testing the waters, SARS decided to treat all personal taxpayers equally this filing season and is allowing all personal income taxpayers to file returns without supporting documents. You must keep your supporting documents because SARS may call for these, but unless it asks, you don't need to send them in.
Besides this seemingly great leap of faith, there have been technological advances for those who don't care to put pen to paper to fill in their income tax returns.
There are now three ways to fill in your return: on paper, electronically and online.
Whichever way you choose, you will see the same green form on your desk or screen. And whether you fill in the electronic or online form, the process is virtually identical, until it comes to submitting it. The electronic form is completed on your computer and you then need to print out the form and physically submit it, while the online form is done live on SARS's system via the internet and is submitted when you hit the "submit" button.
The electronic form is this year's innovation. It can be downloaded from the SARS eFiling website ( www.sarsefiling.co.za- follow the "Forms and guides" link) and filled in on your computer using Adobe's Reader 8.0 program. If you don't have the program, you can download it from the same site.
This file can be stored and worked on at different times or sent to and from your tax adviser - if you trust the email - until you decide it is ready to file.
(You can also take your time completing the online form, saving versions as you work on it over time if you so wish. SARS will be able to process it only after you hit the "submit" button.)
Besides capturing what you type onto the form, the electronic form has a bar-code that records, in a new bar-code pattern, the information you enter each time you work on the form.
When you are ready to submit this electronic form to SARS, you can print the form, sign it and mail it to SARS or drop it off at a SARS office.
When SARS receives the printed version of the electronic form from you, it simply needs to scan the bar-code to get all the information on your return quickly and accurately into its computer system. This means it can process your return faster, because the information doesn't need to be verified, as is the case with handwritten forms.
Handwritten forms are also scanned by SARS's computers, using programs that decipher your handwriting, but the information captured in this way needs to be checked by SARS officials and this means it takes longer to process these returns.
However, if you fill in one of the electronic returns and you realise you have put your faith in technology thus far and may as well go one step further, you can then hit the "eFile" button at the bottom of the return. This will eFile your electronic return and save you having to print it out and take it to a SARS office or post it to SARS.
If you decide to hit the "eFile" button on the Adobe Reader form on your computer, you will automatically be taken to the SARS eFiling website, and all the details you have entered on the form will be securely loaded into SARS's computer system.
All that is left for you to do is to register as an eFiler.
Doing things this way, you end up at the point at which you would have begun if you had decided at the outset to eFile online from SARS's eFiling website. If you decide from the outset to eFile, you register first and then complete the return online.
SARS has also greatly improved the registration process. Last year, in order to register to eFile, you had to print out a form from the site, fill it in and fax it to SARS. Then you had to wait up to 48 hours for SARS to email you a user name. Last-minute filers could not choose this method the night before returns were due.
It's still a bit risky to leave things until the last minute, but this year, if you have a tax reference number and your identity number on hand and if your contact details are the same as they were last year, you can register immediately. SARS says if you have changed a telephone number or your address, you will still be able to start filling in your return instantly, but they may need to call you back to verify your details before processing your return.
If you haven't registered as a taxpayer before, you may need to fax your identity document to SARS and wait for it to register you.
Another nifty feature of the new eFiling system and the electronic form is that you can run through a set of questions to help you determine whether or not you need to fill in the simple IT12S return or the more comprehensive IT12C. The questions come up shortly after you log on to eFile and if you want to download an electronic form, you can access the questions by following the "Returns and guides" and "Income tax return wizard" link on the SARS eFiling website.
If you need the IT12C, you can also add schedules to your return at the click of a button - you may need these if for example, you have more than three IRP5/IT3a certificates, you have a travel allowance and have driven more than two vehicles or if you have additional business, trade or farming income.
Some tricky moments
Sometimes navigating around the online and electronic returns can be a bit tricky, and at times if you want to skip over a section that you don't want to complete immediately, you may need to use some dummy text to get beyond the annoying prompts that come up when you try to save the incomplete return. (Just don't forget to replace any dummy text with the real thing before you submit the return as SARS doesn't take too kindly to the submission of false information.)
But remember that the few snags you may hit when completing your return electronically or online are not likely to outweigh the benefits of doing so. This is especially so if you are expecting a refund from SARS of tax you have paid, because returns that are eFiled will be processed the quickest and unless there is a problem with your return, you could receive your refund within days. Returns that are completed electronically and then submitted will also be processed quicker than paper returns. If you are likely to owe SARS tax and you eFile your return, you have until February 28 next year to pay.
If you are one of those who are struggling to keep up with all the demands on your time, the good thing about eFiling is that you can have until January 31 next year to eFile. If you submit your return any other way, you will have to submit it by October 31.
In addition, when you come to do your tax return next year, you will be able to look up this year's return online if you eFiled this year, which is useful for checking niggly details such as your odometer reading at the start of the tax year.
Quick links needed
While there are many conveniences to using the internet to file your tax return, the one that I thought was missing was quick and easy-to-use online help.
The guide booklets that SARS has produced to help you complete your return - both a quick and easy one that was sent with all the returns that were mailed and a more comprehensive one - are available on the eFiling website (follow the "Returns and guides" link).
You can also, during office hours, call SARS (the call centre number is 0860 12 12 18 or you can contact the eFiling helpdesk for technical assistance with eFiling on 0860 790 790). You can even go into a SARS branch and fill out an electronic or online form with the help of a SARS official.
But if there are just one or two small things you want to check, there is no quick link from any part of either the online or the electronic return to information that will assist you to fill in a particular part of it.
Even if you know how to fill in your return, you will still, at the very least, need to look up the code for your main source of income (unless you have a very good memory). It would be helpful to find that kind of help online at the click of button, rather than accessing a guide elsewhere on the eFiling website.
The new returns are much shorter than any of their predecessors and are therefore intended to be easier to complete. But, amazingly, there are places where the new, simplified returns have already tripped up taxpayers.
For example, when people who are married in community of property come to filling in interest income, dividends and capital gains, they are expected to fill in the full amount of any interest, dividends or capital gains they received together with their spouse. SARS will then divide the amount by two.
It would have been nice if, especially on the online return, there had been a reassuring little pop-up that informed you that in these cases SARS won't forget to divide your interest and gains by two.
But SARS says it is working on this - both for the online form and the electronic form - and in future you may find eFiling no longer just means electronic filing but also easy filing.
This article was first published in Personal Finance magazine, 4th Quarter 2007. See what's in our latest issue