What if I am not tax compliant?

Can SARS penalise me?

By Marc Sevitz · Updated

SARS, in their attempt to promote compliant taxpayers and maximise timely revenue collection, have traditionally imposed penalties for late filing of tax returns. In 2012  SARS upped their game significantly and imposed heavy fines for the following transgressions which still hold to today:

    • Failure to register as a taxpayer.

    • Failure to inform SARS of a change of address and other personal particulars.

    • Failure to submit Income Tax returns (ITR12) and other documents.


The penalty amount is charged monthly until the particular issue of non-compliance is fixed. Penalties are based on the annual income of the taxpayer from the previous tax year, and are charged as follows:

Assessed loss of taxable income for preceding year Penalty amount per month
R 0 - R250 000 R 250
R 250 001 - R 500 000 R 500
R 500 001 - R 1 000 000 R 1 000
R 1 000 001 - R 5 000 000 R 2 000
R 5 000 001 - R 10 000 000 R 4 000
R 10 000 001 - R 50 000 000 R 8 000
Above R 50 000 000 R 16 000

Bottom line: Stay tax compliant.

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