E-filing declared a success

By Leon Engelbrecht, ITWeb senior writer

Johannesburg, 01 Feb 2008

About 60 000 taxpayers submitted their 2006/7 tax returns yesterday, and although the system creaked, it did not fail, says SA Revenue Service (SARS) spokesman Adrian Lackay.

Lackay says at any given time there were 10 000 people using the e-filing server. He says there was a 20-minute window between 9am and 10am yesterday morning when traffic volumes prevented new users from logging on.

Those that tried were given an "e-ticket" that acknowledged they had attempted to file and gave them a further 24 hours to do so. "I hope they are doing that now," Lackay says. Anyone else who files today will be penalised for submitting their returns late, although tax practitioners have a few more days.

SARS says 1.5 million taxpayers registered for e-filing and 650 000 had filed by midnight last night. In 2006, the first year people could file their returns online, 40 000 people did so. Lackay says the "phenomenal growth" in numbers is "a sign of growing public confidence in the system".

"We are very encouraged by this. We are very happy with the performance of our technology and the uptake by taxpayers.

"We benchmark ourselves against the private sector," he adds. "We use banks as the benchmark. As you know, Internet banking has been available for many years but has not had the same uptake."

Lackay adds that the British have not had it so lucky. Yesterday was also the deadline for returns there and Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs' (HMRC) systems failed to cope. As a result, taxpayers there have until tonight to file.

Problems with the service meant some taxpayers experienced difficulties filing online, the British Web site says. "HMRC takes any disruption of service very seriously and to reflect this, everyone who files electronically or by paper by midnight Friday, 1 February will be treated as having filed on time. We very much regret any inconvenience this may have caused."

Despite this, 200 000 Britons filed returns electronically yesterday.

Lackay says the SARS call centre also had a busy day, with about 25 000 calls logged by midday. "We are all very tired," he says.

SARS last year invested R140 million in tax-filing automation technology and simplified the process in order to move away from paper. SARS commissioner Pravin Gordhan last May said the floors at many tax offices were literally creaking under the weight of archived tax returns.

He said the new system would provide taxpayers a "secure, easy and friendly mechanism to work through". The e-filing system is part of a larger, R1.3 billion technology refresh.