Receiving misleading information from SARS regarding income tax return refund?

By Marc Sevitz · Updated

Any idea on what is happening with income tax returns this year?? I have submitted my return early July, only to find out that I am being "audited". I have done the documents needed twice, had to do a dispute, got a return that the objection was allowed, and have subsequently been waiting for my refund since the 3rd of September. I have been phoning the call centre twice a week since then, and have had just as many different responses from them as to what is happening on my return! The answer mostly given is that my return is with the auditors, and they are busy with 3rd party verification which could take between 30 to 60 business days. End of last week I spoke to an agent that told me that everything was now completed, and my return has been sent for payment authorisation, and should be sorted and paid by this week Wednesday. I phoned SARS again just now to find out if payment has been made yet, only to find out that my return is STILL being audited, and there is no such info about payment authorisation on my account, which means the agent blatantly lied to me! I am absolutely furious with this whole situation, as two weeks ago I had the same with a team leader that promised me she escalated the payment, but no such thing was ever done! Can you perhaps give me clarification on how the whole process works this year as it is clearly very much different from previous years? And also if they say the process should take between 30-60 business days, when do you start counting from?
TaxTim Marc

TaxTim Marc said:
3 November 2014 at 22:50

Agreed, this keeps happening at a SARS level. The only information we currently have is what is in our blog on why you may have a delayed refund from SARS
Deductions
Audit / Verification
SARS & eFiling