Current initiatives:

• 8 – 13 February 2021 – SMS to taxpayers who have not responded to their auto-assessments yet:
  
  • Dear ABC MAKEKE 091XXXXXXX, during the 2020 Filing Season, you were selected to participate in SARS Auto-Assessment initiative. We notice that you have not yet elected to accept SARS auto assessment or file your tax return for the 2020 tax year. You still have an opportunity to do so until SARS makes an estimated assessment. We urge you to make use of this opportunity. Should you not do so, SARS will be making an estimated assessment, based on the data at our disposal, on 19 February 2021. Should you file a return after this date, you would be subject to a penalty for the late submission of your return. Regards, SARS
• 16 January 2021 – Survey to selected taxpayers on the SMME Tax Policy – CLOSED NOW
• 4 December 2020 – Customer experience survey to selected taxpayers in the Government segment – CLOSED NOW

How do you know it’s a legitimate survey and not a scam?

SARS will not:

• ask money to complete a survey
• ask you for your personal details 
• pay you to complete the survey
• force people to complete a survey, if not interested, you are welcome to decline.

Members of the public are randomly emailed with false “spoofed” emails made to look as if these emails were sent from SARS, but are in fact fraudulent emails aimed at enticing unsuspecting taxpayers to part with personal information such as bank account details. Examples include emails that appear to be from returns@sars.co.za or refunds@sars.co.za indicating that taxpayers are eligible to receive tax refunds. These emails contain links to false forms and fake websites made to look like the “real thing”, but with the aim of fooling people into entering personal information such as bank account details which the criminals then extract and use fraudulently. See our latest list of scams for more info.

Keep the following in mind:

• Do not open or respond to emails from unknown sources.
• Beware of emails that ask for personal, tax, banking and eFiling details (login credentials, passwords, pins, credit / debit card information, etc.).
• SARS will never request your banking details in any communication that you receive via post, email, or SMS. However, for the purpose of telephonic engagement and authentication purposes, SARS will verify your personal details. Importantly, SARS will not send you any hyperlinks to other websites – even those of banks.
• Beware of false SMSs.
• SARS does not send *.htm or *.html attachments.
• SARS will never ask for your credit card details.