Updated SARS Guides for Filing Season 2026: What You Need to Know

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SARS released updated guides for Filing Season 2026 on 29 June 2026. These guides cover the ITR12 process, provisional tax, and SARS digital channels. If you are a Business Accountant in Practice, this update affects how you file returns for your clients this season, so it is worth reading closely.

Why This Matters for Your Practice

Every year SARS tightens the screws on transactional detail and verification triggers. This year is no different. The changes affect how you declare interest income, how trust returns are prepopulated, and how SARS flags returns for extra scrutiny before issuing a refund. Get these details wrong and your client's refund gets delayed. Get them right and you look like the practitioner who knows the system better than the competition.

Key Changes Across the Guides

In summary, the key aspects which are new this filing season are:

1. Transactional-level declarations. Interest expenses claimed, and amounts accrued as an exclusive deemed resident under a double taxation agreement, must now be declared per institution on the ITR12. This means more line-by-line detail in your client files before you submit.

2. Section 11G interest expense deductions. Expenses incurred in producing interest are deductible, but only up to the amount of interest income received or accrued for that year. Keep this cap in mind when preparing computations.

3. Section 20A ring-fencing. From the 2027 year of assessment, the maximum marginal tax rate will apply to taxable income above the 39% tax bracket scale for ring-fenced assessed losses. This is a forward-looking change, so start preparing affected clients now.

4. Trust returns get prepopulated. Resident taxpayer trust details on the ITR12 will be prepopulated using third-party data from IT3(t) certificates. This should reduce manual capture, but always verify the prepopulated figures against your own records.

5. Medical scheme drop-down list. Taxpayers claiming medical aid deductions must select their scheme from an approved list on the ITR12, rather than typing in the name. Make sure your client's scheme appears on the list before submission day.

6. Declaration alerts before verification. SARS will now ask additional questions upfront through a Declaration Questionnaire if a return is flagged. Answer the questionnaire properly and the return proceeds, refund included. Decline it, and the return goes straight to verification. This is a meaningful change because it gives you a chance to resolve issues before a formal verification case opens.

7. Residency status drives the return type. SARS will use specific indicators, such as dates of ceasing or reinstating tax residency, to decide whether a client gets the resident or non-resident ITR12. Check these indicators against your client's actual circumstances early.

8. WhatsApp notices for auto-assessed taxpayers. Taxpayers not registered for eFiling, without a registered email, but with a verified WhatsApp number, will receive an encrypted notice of assessment via WhatsApp.

9. Overdue return messaging fixed. eFiling will only show the "returns overdue" message if the taxpayer genuinely has not submitted through any channel, including MobiApp and branch submissions. This should stop false overdue alerts confusing your clients.

10. Retirement fund transfers. From the 2026 year of assessment, SARS will reject a return declaring a lump sum benefit where a tax directive was submitted for a fund transfer, but SARS never received the Recognition of Transfers from the receiving fund. Chase up these transfers before filing.

11. Provisional tax deadlines aligned. The due date for aggrieved provisional taxpayers disputing an Auto Assessment is now aligned with the standard provisional tax deadline. The Request for Extension process for auto-assessed provisional taxpayers will only allow valid calendar dates matching the gazetted deadlines.

The Updated Guides at a Glance

More information in the updated guides:

• IT-AE-36-G05 – Comprehensive Guide to the ITR12 Income Tax Return for Individuals – External Guide. Covers all the transactional declaration changes, the medical scheme list, and the trust prepopulation.

• IT-GEN-06-G01 – Guide to the Individual ITR12 Return for Deceased and Insolvent Estates – External Guide. Relevant if you handle estate compliance work.

• IT-AE-36-G06 – Guide to Submit Your Individual Income Tax Return via eFiling – External Guide. Covers the corrected overdue-return messaging.

• GEN-GEN-56-G01 – Submit Request for Reduced Assessment RRA01 via eFiling for Individuals – External Guide.

• GEN-PT-01-G01 – Guide for Provisional Tax – External Guide. Covers the aligned dispute deadline and the new extension date rules.

• IT-AE-45-G01 – Guide to SARS Mobile Tax Services – External Guide.

• IT-AE-49-G01 – Services offered via the SARS MobiApp – External Guide.

• IT-AE-46-G01 – How to submit your Individual Income Tax return via the SARS MobiApp – External Guide.

What to Do Now

Review your client list for anyone with foreign interest income, recent residency changes, retirement fund transfers in progress, or ring-fenced assessed losses. These are the cases most likely to trip up under the new rules. Update your filing checklists to include the medical scheme drop-down requirement and the per-institution interest declarations before Filing Season opens fully.

For more detailed information visit the SARS website and find out more on the new filing season.

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