Online tax return facility to go live in July

By Bronwen Kausch, Media strategist, Innovative Media Productions

Johannesburg, 11 May 2001

Accenture and the PSIber Group have announced MyTax.co.za, its online tax return and payment facility. The venture is the result of one of five tenders awarded by SARS in February to make the revenue service fully electronic.

SARS chose five companies out of ten bidders to facilitate the electronic submission of value-added tax (VAT), pay as you earn (PAYE), provisional tax returns and skills development levy (SDL) payments.

All five will have their own Web sites and individual value-add offerings, while providing the same core functions.

Accenture/PSIber Group, Dimension Data, Hicor, the Pillar Group and Unihold all emerged with a piece of the pie.

The Accenture/PSIber offering, MyTax.co.za, is set to go online on 1 July, by which time the group believes legislation regarding digital signing of tax forms will be passed.

The MyTax system will be rolled out over two main phases with the first phase making VAT, PAYE and SDL available to corporates, payroll personnel, bookkeepers and tax agents.

The second phase will be introduced later in the year and will include provisional taxes, individual tax returns, UIF and many other tax types.

The Accenture/PSIber Group will derive its revenue from the subscription fee charged for joining the service.

Accenture and the PSIber Group say MyTax.co.za offers customers the benefit of receiving a detailed, easily accessible record of all tax payments and transactions with SARS, a quicker turnaround time on submissions, queries and tax directives as well as greater accuracy in submissions and returns.

The government has also incentivised the offering by allowing a five-day grace period after the date of submission until payment, allowing companies to earn interest on the tax payments.

Information will be encrypted and an Accenture spokesman says the technology used for the encryption is of the most advanced available.

The e-filing tenders awarded by SARS expire in two years, at which time the service will re-evaluate the system.