“There are only two things in life you can’t avoid: Death and taxes”
It may not be possible to avoid the reaper and the tax man, but you can certainly try to keep them waiting. So I eat my greens, do my exercise, put on a seat belt and apply sun screen; but after keeping the tax man at bay for months, the final deadline for tax returns was approaching and I could no longer postpone the inevitable…
And despite only having done it once so far, I am already thoroughly convinced that filing a tax return has got to be high up on the list of “The Most Unpleasant Things To Do – Ever!”
After spending hours trying to understand my IRP5 Certificate, calling people for clarification and collecting a thousand receipts, I finally submitted the form on Wednesday afternoon. The Tax Calculator had predicted a wide range of possible outcomes – from me owing R980 to getting a rebate of R2805 – plenty of room for pleasant and nasty surprises!
Given the incredibly fast turnaround times of Government and the reputation for great efficiency of the South African Revenue Services (SARS), I did not expect to hear anything for a long long time…
Surprisingly, when I got to the office on Thursday morning, I had received a mail from SARS informing me that a Statement of Accounts had been issued. The tax rebate (Yay!) that SARS calculated for me did not match any of the results I got from the calculator and was a lot less than I had hoped for (Nay!), but at least I was getting something back!
While I was still considering whether it was worth disputing the assessment, I got a text message this morning informing me that SARS had paid the calculated tax rebate into my account!
So I went from filing my tax return to receiving the money in less than 48 hours!
Talk about efficiency!
Your House As Seen By…
Yourself...
Your Buyer...
Your Bank...
Your Appraiser...
The South African Revenue Services...
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