SARS - FINAL NOTIFICATION OF OUTSTANDING DEBT

[Neville Bailey]

A few days ago I received a notice from SARS headed "FINAL NOTIFICATION OF OUTSTANDING DEBT", which contained a breakdown of amounts related to late payments of my VAT returns over the past number of periods.

How do I pay this amount on efiling?

I have tried using the "Create Additional Payment" under "Additional Payments", but it won't accept my VAT number in the Payment Reference Number field, and the notice does not have any other reference number other than my VAT number and a case number (which I also tried).

[Justloadit]

In my case I was fortunate that I had a credit for one period, and they simply paid me less on the VAT I claimed on that period.
Maybe pop into the SARS office and make a cheque/Cash payment?

[Neville Bailey]

Maybe pop into the SARS office and make a cheque/Cash payment?

I would like to avoid doing that if possible.

I was thinking of bypassing efiling altogether and making an EFT from my bank - SARS VAT Payments is one of the official third party beneficiaries on Nedbank. I could then use my VAT reference number and/or the Case number as the reference. Hopefully SARS will be able to join the dots?

[HR Solutions]

Under input on the vat201 there is a penalties box where you can add it, then it calculates the total including penalties.

[BusFact]

1) Get a statement of account for VAT off efiling. Let me know if you don't know. Be sure to get one for each of say the last three years (2015, 2014 and 2013) because the plonkers at Sars don't carry any outstanding balance forward. Your final demand might already give you the periods concerned, which may let you skip this bit. You will need the actual period, not just the year.

2) Go to the return history / VAT201. The logic of this is unique to SARS.

3) Select the return for the actual period for which there was a late payment. Click on the "make payment" button. A new screen appears with a box with the original payment amount in it (for the whole return). Change the amount to what you owe in penalties in interest for that specific period only.

4) Click on pay now.

5) Now you should be able to go to the payments menu and the amount you have just entered should be under general unpaid. Follow your normal payment procedure depending on who you bank with and whether you push, pull, shove or kick.

6) Repeat for each period you have outstanding amount.

The clown who came up with this process ..... nah, let me stop there.

Excuse the tone of the message but I'm so pissed with them at the moment. Sending these final demands (before sending any other demand or even written notification) and in the days when half the country is shut down for the convenient 10 business days warning, is nothing short of devious unethical tricks that I expect of loan sharks. Then the pathetic excuse of a SARS representative (commission based thug) can't even tell you how to pay (I mean who in their right mind could after seeing point 1-6). Fortunately their call centre had been down this road before, which is where I was introduced to this amazingly convoluted procedure a few days ago.

Good luck Neville.

[BusFact]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]5119[/ATTACH]Under input on the vat201 there is a penalties box where you can add it, then it calculates the total including penalties.

The problem is that you only have 10 business days to sort out this arrogant final (and only) demand document, so he can't wait to settle when doing his next VAT return. I've also found that this causes a matching concern, because your penalty and interest is almost always from a previous period and not for the one in which you are doing the return for.

[Dave A]

Assuming you can arrive at the correct amount (post 5 above resonates only too well with me), you can make a single payment using the following reference string:
str(VAT_NUMBER+"V00000000")
I'm pretty sure it's 7 zeros.

According to SARS rhetoric, this payment will get assigned to oldest outstanding debts first, but I suspect it will float as an unallocated payment until you give SARS instructions on how to allocate it, so a trip into SARS might prove unavoidable.

[BusFact]

I tried a whole bunch of reference number variations and it refused to accept them on the SARS efiling site when I tried to make an "additional payment". I'm pretty sure I tried your suggestion, but Neville perhaps give that a go. Not even the stupid debt collector clown at SARS could figure it out. The only thing that worked for me was post 5 without the sarcasm and insults

I have just requested a VAT statement of account and the payments I made a week ago using the method in post 5, are showing up in the correct periods and I seem to have nothing outstanding anymore.

All that's left is the chip on my shoulder from the arrogant final demand received for a debt that was mostly 2 weeks old, and although technically correct, a dubious one in itself -payment was received before the end of the month, but not by the last working day.

[Houses4Rent]

How about simply calling their helpdesk? Occasionally they actually know stuff.
Other than that I have no clue.

[HR Solutions]

The problem is that you only have 10 business days to sort out this arrogant final (and only) demand document, so he can't wait to settle when doing his next VAT return. I've also found that this causes a matching concern, because your penalty and interest is almost always from a previous period and not for the one in which you are doing the return for.

Obviously the penalties will be from a previous return. I'm not sure why everyone is running this very simple concept down when it works. ? The penalties paid over gets allocated to the oldest.

SARS actually does work when you phone them or if you go in - they have modernised most of their systems.

[Sparks]

My advice is to first confirm with them that it is legit. The case number being unknown could be the reason it won't work. Plenty scammers around.

[BusFact]

How about simply calling their helpdesk? Occasionally they actually know stuff.
Other than that I have no clue.

The convoluted process explained in post 5 was what the call centre / help desk instructed me to do.

[BusFact]

Obviously the penalties will be from a previous return. I'm not sure why everyone is running this very simple concept down when it works. ? The penalties paid over gets allocated to the oldest.

SARS actually does work when you phone them or if you go in - they have modernised most of their systems.

The issue here is that it is a final demand, which gives you 10 days to pay otherwise they can start taking any money from anyone that owes you without further notice. His next VAT return is probably only due in 6 weeks time (well at least mine was), so how can he/I submit the VAT201 and fill in the penalty section?

I'm not sure everyone is running them down, but I certainly am. If I had been given some sort of notice that an amount was due, I could have and would have followed your suggested process. I never did. They went straight to final demand, and nope I doubt I missed any notices seeing that only 2 weeks had past since the debt became due.

This final demand requires some sort of immediate action.

Now I could have maybe paid into the SARS VAT account using that ref with all the zeros that Dave suggested earlier, and then hope that SARS allocated it correctly and within 10 days. I didn't want to take a chance because I had been dealing with an imbecile that was more interested in issuing collection notices than he was in helping me pay the debt, and so I wanted to make sure the allocation was done on efiling, just like the monthly returns are done.

[BusFact]

Nope the debt was real (in my case). No arguments there. I checked on efiling. In any case payments are made to the normal VAT bank account. Its just the admin process around it that became a problem.

[Houses4Rent]

Sorry, did not realise that. Sometimes I go through the pains and call more than once asking the same question. I bet you will get a different question next time. If its the same again you can tell them its not working and that you need to speak to a supervisor. Or call again with existing case number and ask to speak to a supervisor right away.