How to see which Tax Directives SARS has on record for you

Issue:

When you submit your tax return, SARS rejects it with a message which states that a Tax Directive was issued by SARS, but no Lump Sum amount is declared in the return.

This means that SARS has a Tax Directive on record for you and they are expecting to see the related lumpsum IRP5 with the matching Tax Directive in your tax return. If you have not included this IRP5, SARS won’t be able to finalise your return and issue you an assessment for the tax year.

For more on IRP5 lumpsums, please read our blog.

What to do:

You need to contact your fund/employer and track down the missing IRP5.  They will need to submit the IRP5 to SARS and then you will need to add this IRP5 to your return and resubmit it.

This is easier said than done – who to contact? what to ask for?

Luckily, SARS has recently introduced a new feature on eFiling which allows you to see which Tax Directives have been applied for you.

All you need to do, is follow the steps below to retrieve a copy and send on to the relevant fund/employer to request details of the related IRP5.

Step 1

Login to your SARS eFiling profile:

Step 2

Select the "Services" tab on your top right hand side

Step 3

Click on “Tax Directives” on your left and then click on “Request Previous Years Directives”

Step 4

In the middle of the page, at "Tax Year From", enter 2020 (or earlier if the return is a different year), the end tax year is auto-populated by SARS, and then click "Submit".

At the bottom, a list of directives will show.  Click “View IRP3” at the one you need, click on okay and the site will then download the directive for you.

Step 5

Send this Tax Directive to your fund / employer and ask them to send you the IRP5 they submitted to SARS.

First refresh your IRP5 data on eFiling, if the missing IRP5 is still not listed, you will have to manually add this IRP5 to your tax return and resubmit it to SARS.

Once you have done this,  SARS should issue an assessment for your return.

Step 6

If SARS does not issue an assessment after you have added the missing IRP5 (per steps 1-5 above), the best course of action would be to  set up an appointment with SARS to resolve.