Where to find it
Open SARS, choose the Income tax tab, then the second sub-tab. It is named for your own form — “ITR12 — annual” for a sole proprietor or partner, “ITR14 — annual” for a company, CC or co-operative, “IT12TR — annual” for a trust, or “TT03 — annual” on Turnover Tax (“ITR12 / ITR14 — annual” until your legal form is set). The Compliance Dashboard’s Annual Income Tax row opens the same place. A login needs Annual Tax turned on to open it. It opens on the tax year that has ended — the one you file. Step with ‹ ›; a year that hasn’t ended yet is shown as a part-year picture, not a return.
How the figure is worked out
- It starts from Net profit per your books — the bottom line of your Profit & Loss for the tax year (1 March to end February), after any tax you paid. It is the same engine, so the two can never disagree.
- It adds back the costs SARS does not allow: the income tax, provisional tax and turnover tax you paid, SARS penalties and interest, and donations without a section 18A receipt. They sit in your books but are not deductible.
- It adds back the depreciation in your books and takes off SARS’s wear and tear from your asset register instead. If you sold an asset, it backs out the profit or loss on the sale in your books and adds SARS’s version: any recoupment, or the scrapping allowance taken off if you got less than its tax value. A gain above what the asset cost is a capital gain: shown on screen with its steps (annual exclusion and inclusion rate), but not in the figure.
- It takes off the deductions you saved for the year — retirement contributions, section 18A donations, a home office — each within its SARS cap, and any assessed loss brought forward you enter.
- It applies your scale — the individual tables and rebates, the SBC scale, the flat company or trust rate — and nets off the provisional payments you recorded when you marked them filed (a period marked filed as not paid yet, or whose payment has since been removed from Banking, counts nothing). Check that figure under Adjust the computation → Provisional tax already paid, and type over it if what you paid is different.
At the bottom, 📄 PDF prints this working for your accountant, and 📊 CSV / Excel gives the same figures as a spreadsheet.
Mark it filed
Once it is submitted on eFiling, tap “✔️ Mark ITR12 2025/26 as filed” (your form and year). Before you tap it, the box under it asks whether you have paid: “Paid — record the money too” logs the payment as an expense under Tax — Income tax payable (Tax — Turnover tax payable for a TT03) with the date and the account it left, and the Tax Jar counts it towards the year the return is for, not the year it leaves the bank in; “Not paid yet — just record the filing” keeps the record only. If the year ends in a refund, nothing is logged as paid. Undo takes both back out.