Requesting Income Tax Numbers for job seekers

It has come to our attention that first-time job seekers are being asked for their Income Tax Reference Numbers in order to be considered for job interviews.   While SARS will readily assist persons who approach our offices to register, such processes are putting unnecessary strain on both the prospective employees and on our SARS branches.  

Top Tip: Individuals can also register for Personal Income Tax automatically via eFiling. For more information, click here.

It is important to note that SARS does not require a person to have a tax number when they are employed for the first time. We provide a variety of easy processes to register your employees for Income Tax, which do not require them to visit a SARS branch. The available processes to register your employees are:

• SARS e@syFile™ Employer (“Individual ITREG”) using Employee Registration; or
• Bundled registration (“Bundled ITREG”) available on e@syFile™ Employer allowing you to register up to 100 employees at a time but limited to 1 000 employees per month.
• When registered as an organisation, employers can register individual employees on eFiling. When registered as a tax practitioner a file upload option is available in Excel or CSV file format on eFiling.

We encourage you to utilise these options to streamline the process of obtaining Income Tax numbers for employees.

For more information please consult the SARS e@syFile™ Employer User Guide.