SARS auto-assessments are out. Don't just accept yours

Filing season opened this week. From 1 to 12 July 2026, SARS is sending auto-assessment notices by SMS and email, and from 13 July everyone who didn't get one can file. The dates, from the SARS filing season page: non-provisional taxpayers have until 23 October 2026, provisional taxpayers until 22 January 2027, and trusts file from 19 September. The change that matters this year, sitting quietly in SARS's list of changes for the 2026 season: some provisional taxpayers will be auto-assessed for the first time. SARS hasn't spelled out who qualifies, so whether you're in the net this year is something you find out by SMS, not something to assume either way.

The notice says no further action is required if you agree. For someone with one employer, a medical aid and nothing on the side, that's usually true. If you run a business, or earn anything a bank or employer doesn't report for you, read on before you take SARS at its word.

What an auto-assessment actually is

SARS builds your return for you from third-party data: the IRP5 certificate your employer filed for you, plus feeds from banks, medical schemes, retirement funds and insurers. If its systems decide that picture is complete, it issues an assessment without waiting for you to file. Refund due? It gets paid to the bank account SARS has on record. Owe money? The notice gives you a due date.

Here's the problem for business owners. Those feeds cover what institutions report about you, and nothing else. Your invoices, your rental income, the weekend consulting, the market-stall takings: no third party reports those, so the auto-assessment doesn't include them. The assessment isn't wrong because SARS slipped up. It's incomplete because it can't see income only you know about. Accepting it anyway doesn't make the missing income disappear; it means you've signed off on a return that understates what you earned, and that's on you, not SARS.

A side note while we're here: this is also the year SARS added WhatsApp access to your Notice of Assessment and Statement of Account, and gave eFiling a facelift. Neither changes any obligation. Both are genuinely useful when you're stuck in a queue at Home Affairs.

Three things to check before you accept

1. Income. Put the assessment next to your bank statements for the year to end-February 2026. Contract work, rent, crypto you sold, anything you invoiced in your own name: if it earned you money and it isn't on the assessment, you can't accept it.
2. Deductions. Prefilled data misses things you'd normally claim: home-office costs, wear and tear on equipment, travel against a logbook. An auto-assessment never argues your case for you.
3. Banking details. Refunds go to the account on file. Changed banks since last July? Fix it on eFiling first.

SARS's own get-ready checklist covers the mechanics. If any of the three above fails, don't accept: file a corrected ITR12, your personal income tax return, through eFiling or the SARS MobiApp inside your window. That's 13 July to 23 October for most people, or 22 January 2027 if you're a provisional taxpayer.

Do I still need to file if SARS auto-assessed me?

If the assessment is complete and correct, no. You're done for the year, and the refund, if there is one, arrives on its own.

If income or deductions are missing, yes. Silence counts as acceptance: do nothing and the assessment stands as your final return, with the missing income sitting in it as an understatement waiting to be matched. SARS's data-matching is exactly how those gaps get found two or three years later.

Who gets one, and who doesn't

Likely to be auto-assessed:

• Salary earners with one employer and straightforward affairs
• People whose income SARS can fully see through third-party data
• This year, an unspecified slice of provisional taxpayers

Not auto-assessed:

• Companies. There is no such thing as a company auto-assessment.
• Trusts, which file in their own window from 19 September 2026
• Most provisional taxpayers, who still file by 22 January 2027 the ordinary way

Your company was not auto-assessed

This is the July trap for first-time directors. Filing season is about your personal return. Your company's income tax return, the ITR14, runs on its own clock: due within 12 months of the company's financial year-end, with provisional payments along the way. No SMS is coming for it. If the company's returns are overdue and nobody files them, penalties build up quietly while your personal notice tells you everything is fine.

We keep a current breakdown of which returns a private company owes, and when. And if nobody can file for the company because SARS has no registered representative on record for it, that's fixable.

What ignoring all this costs

Late or missing returns draw administrative penalties of R250 to R16,000 a month, per return, recurring every month until you file. Our SARS penalty calculator shows how fast that compounds against your own numbers. Income that SARS later finds missing from an accepted auto-assessment is worse: understatement penalties run up to 200% of the shortfall, plus interest.

One more thing, unrelated to SARS itself: filing season is phishing season. A message that asks you to click a link and confirm banking details or an eFiling password to "release your refund" is a scam, every time. Type the eFiling address yourself, or use the SARS Online Query System, and look at what's actually on your profile.

Sort the company side while you're checking

You're going to spend an evening this month on your personal assessment anyway. Spend ten more minutes on the company: returns filed, provisional payments up to date, registered representative in place. Govchain files company tax returns for you: you hand over the numbers, we deal with SARS, and the ITR14 deadline stops living in your head. Start with our guide to how company tax returns work if you want the full picture first.