If you are emigrating, investing large sums offshore, bidding on a tender, or simply need to prove your good standing with the taxman, you will need to use the Tax Compliance Status service on the eFiling portal of the South African Revenue Service (SARS).
According to SARS, whether you are a business or an individual, you will, at some point, need to provide or confirm your tax compliance status with another entity.
Formerly called the Tax Clearance Certificate, SARS launched a new online system in 2016 that allows taxpayers to verify their good standing with the Tax Compliance Status (TCS) service.
Once you have generated a TCS PIN, you can still print a Tax Clearance Certificate.
To verify your tax compliance status, you must log into eFiling and click on Tax Status in the top menu bar, which will take you to the TCS section.
There, you need to click on the Tax Compliance Status menu option and navigate to Activation, pictured below.
The profile pictured here is already activated. Non-activated users should click on the Activate button, and on the next page, click Continue.
This will take you to the Entity Reference Number Confirmation screen, where you can scan over your relevant reference numbers. At the bottom of this page, select Yes, then scroll back to the top and submit the form.
Your TCS will now be activated. To view your profile, click on the My Compliance Profile tab, pictured below.
All the tabs in your profile should be green. If any are red, you can either remedy or challenge the status, as outlined by SARS.
After activating you TCS, you need to submit specific TCS requests depending on your needs.
To do so, navigate to the Tax Compliance Status Request tab. There are four TCS options to choose from, as seen below.
Upon submitting your request, you will be redirected to the submission page, where you will be given a Request reference number, as well as a PIN for verification.
On the submission page, simply fill in your relevant details and submit the form at the bottom of the page.
After submitting, you will see a notice that says your request has been successfully submitted, and you should receive an SMS verifying this.
As pictured above, this SMS will also contain your PIN, which will be used for the next step: Verification.
After completing the TCS request, click on the Tax Compliance Status Verification tab, and select New Verification Request.
On the verification page, as seen below, you will need to fill in your tax reference number, as well as the aforementioned PIN.
When your details are filled in, click continue, and click continue on the following page as well.
This will redirect you to the Results Summary page, on which you can see your status for the given request.
If you’ve completed this process step by step, your TCS is fully confirmed.
Tax Compliance Status tutorial video from SARS
Main Image: Web
