SARS IMPLEMENTS MEDICAL TAX CHANGES

The South African Revenue Service (SARS) has implemented medical aid tax changes. The state-owned enterprise said the aim of the changes is to make it easier to submit data and reduce audits for taxpayers with more complex medical claims.

The changes are mainly connected to the data required to be submitted by medical aid schemes.

According to BusinessTech, the changes include:

·        Provision of data on disabled principal members and their dependents.

·        Dats of persons making payments on behalf of principal members.

·        Separate non-allowable from the allowable expenses, currently reported as claims not paid or covered by medical schemes on the IT3(f) certificate.

·        Field f, File Layout Version must be 3.

SARS said it envisions some problems as people and medical aid schemes get used to the changes. It has given a grace period of 6 months for partial submission of the requested data.

Tax season for non-provisional individual taxpayers will open on 15 July and close again on 21 October.

Auto-assessment notices will be distributed between 1 and 14 July.

Tax season for provisional taxpayers will also open on 15 July, but will only close on 20 January 2025, while the tax season for trusts will open on 16 September and close on 20 January 2025.

Image credit: Numeracy Accounting Solutions