When should I pay SARS
You’ve received your assessment, sent SARS your supporting documents but owe SARS on the initial assessment, what should you do?
As soon as you receive your assessment and it confirms that you need to pay SARS an amount, you can make the payment to SARS. You can do this even if there’s a first and second due date on your assessment to make the payment, if you are able to make the payment before the second due date, we suggest you pay SARS to avoid any penalties or interest being charged if you miss the second due date.
If you anticipate that you might owe SARS more than what was mentioned on the initial assessment, once they disallow some of your previously claimed expenses, we suggest you wait till SARS actually send you a revised assessment and then pay the shortfall.
We understand the urge to want to get SARS off your back and pay them in one go, however if you overpay the amount due by you on the first assessment, your tax account might be routed for an additional audit to allow SARS to figure out why you overpaid them.
So, to avoid this, please only pay the amount due on your assessment until you receive the additional assessment.
