Approximately 2 million taxpayers have already submitted their tax returns to offices of the South African Revenue Service (SARS) countrywide.
Because of the tremendous response, long queues, and over 30 000 calls from taxpayers in just one day to our call centres, SARS decided to open it offices throughout the country on Saturday, 9 July, 2005 from 08:00 am to 12:30 pm.
These measures should help with the spill over of taxpayers who may be unable to submit their returns on time in light of the high volumes of people who are already queuing at our branch offices.
SARS must acknowledge the fantastic response by millions of South African taxpayers who have submitted their tax returns for this year?s Filing Season campaign.
To date SARS has received about 60% of the 2.8 million income tax returns that were issued to individual taxpayers during the first quarter of this year.
It must be emphasized that the deadline to submit tax returns remains Friday, 8 July 2005. All returns that will be received on Saturday the 9th will be deemed to have been received on Friday 8 July 2005, as the intervention to extend office hours is purely operational.
SARS is extremely proud and very satisfied with the response of taxpayers to the Filing Season campaign. Equally between 7 000 and 8 000 SARS officials in branch offices around the country have responded beyond the call of their normal duty to ensure that this very important campaign is a success and that taxpayers are assisted in a manner that is professional and efficient.
For further media enquiries, please contact Adrian Lackay, SARS Communications on 012 422 6037 or 083 388 2580
ISSUED BY THE COMMISSIONER FOR THE SOUTH AFRICAN REVENUE SERVICE
PRETORIA