Got an Auto-Assessment from SARS? Don’t Just Hit Accept

Tax season is almost here, and for many South Africans the process is about to get a whole lot quieter. No forms to wrestle with, no figures to capture. Just a message from SARS telling you your tax has already been worked out for you.

It sounds like a dream. And often it is. But “done for you” is not the same as “done correctly,” and that small difference can cost you real money.

Here is what you need to know before your auto-assessment lands.

First, what is an auto-assessment?

An auto-assessment is SARS doing your tax return for you. Instead of asking you to fill everything in, SARS pulls the information it already has from your employer, your bank, your medical aid and your retirement fund, then calculates whether you are owed a refund or owe them money.

If you are selected, you will get an SMS or email between 1 and 12 July 2026. If you have not heard from SARS by 12 July, you have not been auto-assessed, and you will need to file your own return from 13 July.

This year SARS has leaned into the process even further. More of your information is pre-filled than ever before, and for the first time some provisional taxpayers may be invited into the auto-assessment net too.

The catch: convenient is not the same as correct

Here is the part SARS does not put in the headline. An auto-assessment is only as good as the information SARS has on file, and SARS rarely has the full picture of your life.

It works beautifully if your tax affairs are simple: one employer, one source of income, nothing out of the ordinary. But the moment your situation has a little more going on, the gaps start to show.

Things an auto-assessment commonly misses include:

• Medical expenses you paid out of your own pocket that did not go through your medical aid
• Retirement annuity contributions that do not appear on your IRP5
• Home office costs, if you qualify to claim them
• Travel claims backed by a logbook
• Donations to registered public benefit organisations
• Rental income, freelance work or a side hustle

That last group matters in both directions. Miss a deduction and you simply lose out on a bigger refund. But miss income that should have been declared, accept the assessment anyway, and you could be facing penalties down the line. SARS may not pick it up now, but it can come back to it later, and the penalties for under-declared income are not small.

The refund trap

There is one more thing worth understanding about how this works now.

If a refund is due, SARS pays it straight into your bank account, often within about 72 hours, before you have even had a proper chance to check the numbers. It is easy to see that money arrive and assume everything must be in order.

It does not work that way. A refund landing in your account is not SARS confirming your assessment is correct. It simply means SARS calculated a refund based on the information it had. If that information was incomplete, the figure could still be wrong, and the responsibility for getting it right sits with you, not with SARS.

So, if your refund arrives, our advice is simple: do not rush to spend it until the assessment has been checked.

What to do when your auto-assessment arrives

When that SMS or email comes through, here is the sensible order of events:

1. Wait for the official notification before logging in, and stay alert to scam messages pretending to be from SARS.
2. Log in to eFiling or the SARS MobiApp and open your assessment.
3. Compare what SARS used against your own records: your IRP5, medical aid certificate, retirement annuity certificate, and anything else relevant to your year.
4. If everything is correct and complete, you are done. There is nothing you need to accept, and any refund will be paid automatically.
5. If something is missing or wrong, do not accept it. File an updated return (ITR12) instead. You have 40 business days from the date of your notice to do so.

If you owe SARS, pay by the due date shown on your assessment notice to avoid interest.

Where we come in

This is exactly the kind of thing we love taking off your plate. Before you accept anything, send your auto-assessment our way. We will pull the data SARS used, check it against your actual documents, and make sure you are not leaving a refund on the table or quietly walking into a problem.

An auto-assessment can be a genuinely good thing. It just deserves a second look first.

Got your notice, or expecting one? Get in touch and we will check it for you before you do anything else.

At nhb accounting, we work with SMEs, family businesses, group companies and trusts to navigate exactly these kinds of decisions with clarity and confidence. We review your financial position, asset values, client base and growth trajectory before recommending a course of action.