As the 21 November tax season deadline fast approaches, taxpayers may find relief knowing that this year there is a new and simpler alternative for submitting their annual tax returns provided by digital tax assistant TaxTim.
Until now TaxTim has focussed on assisting South Africans with completing their income tax return forms correctly through their easy to use online and mobile-friendly interface. Now TaxTim has extended its abilities to also include one-click electronic submission of tax returns straight into SARS.
“A lot of people are confused by not knowing where or how to enter incomes and expenses on their tax returns, or miss out on getting the refunds that are due to them simply because they don’t know better,” says TaxTim director and CTO Evan Robinson. “Instead of presenting difficult forms with hundreds of blocks, TaxTim asks you simple questions one-by-one in an on-screen conversation, then completes and submits your tax return for you.
“Since we launched in 2011 our goal has always been to make tax as easy as it should be for tax payers, enabling them to be confidently compliant all on their own. Until now we only helped with half of that process. We are very excited to finally offer professional assistance throughout the entire customer journey, from registration through to submission. Now you might ask: ‘Why eFile when you can T-file?’.”
Secure electronic submission has been in development at TaxTim for over a year. The company entered into an agreement with SARS in 2013 to become an official vendor and integrate directly with the SARS eFiling platform. The new system had to pass three stages of quality assurance and testing with the SARS technical team before being approved.
TaxTim customers can now expect to complete their tax return forms and then immediately submit them via “T-filing”, straight into the SARS system, receiving assessments and any due refunds a day or two later.
“To date over 900 000 taxpayers have consulted with TaxTim, and we are glad to see that South Africans are increasingly turning online for help with their taxes,” says TaxTim director and CFO Marc Sevitz. “The US market shows a similar trend of growing popularity for consumer tax applications – in 2013 Intuit earned $1.45 billion from its TurboTax offering. Our goal is to deliver the TaxTim brand via its scalable platform to the African market, and we are negotiating the necessary partnerships to do so.”
