Johannesburg - Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan on Monday thanked the more than six million people who filed their tax returns on time.
“The growth in the number of tax returns filed despite an increase in the threshold for submitting a return from R120,000 to R250,000 shows the continued growth in tax compliance by fellow South Africans,” he said in a statement.
“The ability to collect tax revenue from individual and corporate citizens to finance the provision of public services and the provision of socio-economic infrastructure has been one of the cornerstones of our democracy these past 20 years.”
The deadline for the submission of tax returns by non-provisional taxpayers (individuals who earn an income from an employer) was November 22.
The preliminary outcome of the 2013 tax season indicated that 6.09 million returns were submitted for 2013.
This was a 7.7 percent increase from 2012.
Of eligible taxpayers in the country, 91.5 percent submitted their returns on time and 1.55m outstanding returns from previous years were submitted.
The SA Revenue Service (Sars) received R674m in penalties from defaulting taxpayers.
From the returns submitted, 99.86 percent were sent in electronically and 94.83 percent of the returns were assessed within three seconds.
Ninety-five percent of refunds were paid within 72 hours.
Sars paid over R14.2 billion in tax refunds to two million taxpayers. - Sapa