Auto Assess and Travel expenses

I have received an SMS, stating that my tax has been assessed automatically and that a refund is due of R7000,00 however I do not know if my travelling has been taken into account as I have not sent anything yet. Could you help me in clarifying this matter? Should I accept it as it is, would this not have an impact on my tax return to SARS when I do finally submit it?

Unfortunately, the amount stated on the SMS is not correct. According to your auto-assessment on SARS eFiling, you will have a payment due to SARS if you accept the auto-assessment.

This is mainly because SARS did not include your travelling deduction information as they are not able to retrieve this information from their linked 3rd parties.

We suggest that you submit your tax return on TaxTim as normal and include all your applicable income and deductions.

Please refer to our Auto-assessments blog for more information.

Kindly note you will need the following supporting documents to qualify for the travel claims.

1. a Travel logbook (having the following content):

-Dates for travel, including your Business and Private kilometres applicable to the tax year that’s being audited.
-Description of the details of the trip (e.g.: meeting client, J. Smith at Eskom)
-Starting odometer reading (e.g.: 1 March 2021) and closing odometer reading(s) (e.g. 28 February 2022)
-To and From location need to be clearly indicated for each trip

Kindly note that your logbook must be in a SARS approved format, you can use the SARS-Travel-e-log-book Please add a column for your private travel as SARS has recently started asking for this too.
Remember that driving from home to office and vice versa is always considered to be private travel.

2. Purchase contract of the vehicle (if the vehicle belongs to you)

3. Letter from employer (Employer-Provided Vehicle)

You’ll need a letter from the employer stating that the vehicle is used for business purposes, vehicle information and fringe benefits applicable to employee.

4. Logbook Calculation Summary

(a screenshot of our Travel Deduction Calculator showing the travel calculation will suffice). TaxTim Travel Calculator

5. Actual vehicle expense invoices (unless you claim based on the ‘deemed’ method)

Please note; should you have used more than one vehicle for business purposes, all relevant information for each vehicle used will be required.