The South African Revenue Service (Sars) had by Tuesday received an estimated 2,4-million tax returns for the 2004/05 financial year, following the passage of the official tax-return deadline on Friday July 8.
Sars is still finalising the numbers as it waits for the remaining figures to come in from its branch offices around the country, said Sars spokesperson Adrian Lackay.
The estimate of 2,4-million is a “very conservative” one, Lackay said on Tuesday, and does not include an additional 700 000 extensions Sars had granted.
This means Sars is well on track to exceed its own target of 2,5-million returns for the year, compared with the 2,1-million filed in 2003/04.
“We are still reconciling and counting the returns, and must wait to see the statistics from our branch offices before we can provide the final figures,” he said. “We are likely to have them by the end of the week or early next week.”
Lackay said Sars is “very satisfied” with the result overall.
“It has been a fantastic response from taxpayers. We are quite confident now that, based on our own information so far, we have about 2,4-million returns. But this is a very conservative estimate.”
He noted that Sars saw a good response to its move to open its offices on Saturday morning to receive returns from taxpayers unable to file them on Friday due to the long queues.
“We did have a lot of people turn up on Saturday, but the peak day was Thursday, followed by Friday. Our main offices saw between 10 000 and 12 000 people per day on those days.” — I-Net Bridge