Estimate your provisional tax (IRP6)

What this tool does

Provisional tax is how businesses and individuals pay income tax during the year, in bites, instead of one lump at the end. Worklog adds up the income and expenses you have logged, works out your profit, and shows you an estimate of what a provisional tax payment might be for the period you pick. It sits on the "IRP6 — provisional" tab. If your business is registered for Turnover Tax instead, the tab is "TT02 — interim" and works on your turnover rather than your profit.

Think of it as a planning number, not your real return. It helps you set money aside and know roughly what is coming. Your actual IRP6 return is submitted on SARS eFiling or by your accountant. On Turnover Tax there is no return to submit, only the interim payment to make.

Before you start

The estimate is only as good as what you have captured. Log your income and expenses for the year first, so the profit the tool reads is close to reality.

• Provisional Tax is included on every plan.
• You will find it under Compliance → SARS, on the Income tax tab, then the first sub-tab — "IRP6 — provisional", or "TT02 — interim" if you are on Turnover Tax. The second sub-tab is your annual return. Each working needs its own tool: the first opens with Provisional Tax and the second with Annual Tax. A login without the right one sees what is shut and who can turn it on.
• Set How you’re registered with SARS and Which tax do you pay? in Business details first — the tool reads them automatically, so your estimate starts on the right tax rules.
• Have any allowable deductions in mind (for example a home office or retirement annuity), and if you are doing Period 2, know what you already paid in Period 1.

Get your estimate

1. Open SARS, choose the Income tax tab, then the "IRP6 — provisional" sub-tab ("TT02 — interim" on Turnover Tax). A login needs Provisional Tax turned on to open it.
2. Use the ‹ and › arrows to pick the tax year, then tap Period 1 (Mar–Aug) or Period 2 (full year).
3. Read the navy card at the top — that is your answer. Along the top it names the form, the period and your set-up. Below that come your taxable income for the year (your turnover, on Turnover Tax), the tax on it, any rebates and medical credits taken off, the tax for the year, what Period 1 took (Period 2 only), and the amount due (50% due — Period 1, or Balance due — Period 2) with the due date.
4. A banner at the top of the Income tax tab names the set-up the figures are on — for example "You're on Normal tax · Sole proprietor · So you file an IRP6 twice a year and an ITR12 once." There is no business-type picker on this screen any more; tap Change on the banner to edit it in Business details. If your legal form is not set, the banner says so and tells you Worklog is working the figures out as a sole proprietor until you set it.
5. If your business is registered with SARS for Turnover Tax, choose the Turnover Tax card in Business Details (it lists who qualifies). The tab then reads "TT02 — interim" and works on your turnover. Trusts do not see this.
6. Whether you qualify as a Small Business Corporation is set once, in Business details under "Which tax do you pay?" — a Qualifies as an SBC card appears there for a company, CC or co-operative on normal tax, and it lists SARS's full test. The banner on this screen then shows SBC beside your legal form.
7. Under the card, the block headed From your records shows your income, costs, net profit and an annualised profit (or, on Turnover Tax, your turnover). You do not type these in — they come from your records. On Turnover Tax the first TT02 may not be lower than last year's taxable turnover unless SARS approved a lower estimate (Sixth Schedule, paragraph 11(2)). Worklog lifts it to that figure where your recorded dates put last year on Turnover Tax. The figure is last year's TT03 marked filed, or your books if they cover all of last year. In your first year on Turnover Tax there is no floor, and a company has none in its first year of assessment either, because there is no year before it. With no date recorded Worklog takes last year as a Turnover Tax year and says so. The box "SARS approved a lower estimate" is saved for the tax year; marking the period filed keeps the figure you filed, and the paper prints the paragraph 11(2) line.
8. Tap Adjust the estimate for the deductions. There are three boxes instead of one free-text figure, because each has its own SARS rule: retirement-fund contributions (section 11F limits these to a share of your taxable income), section 18A donations (capped at a tenth), and a home office, which Worklog calculates from the room’s share of your home and its running costs rather than asking you for a number. Tap "Save these for 2026/27" (the year on screen) and they are remembered for that tax year — both IRP6 periods and your annual return then read the same figures. See “Deductions you claim outside your books”. Turnover Tax has no deductions at all.
9. Your age, the people on your medical aid and, for a partnership, your share are not asked here — they are facts about you, saved once in Business details, and every screen that taxes you reads the same values. Under Adjust the estimate, a blue "From your profile" block states them with the rebate and medical credit applied, and a "Change these" link. From 65 SARS gives you a bigger rebate, and bigger again from 75. If Worklog cannot see a medical aid it applies no credit and says so, rather than assuming one you do not have.
10. For Period 2, Amount already paid in Period 1 (under Adjust the estimate) starts from the payment you recorded when you marked Period 1 filed — nothing, if you marked it filed as not paid yet or that payment has since been removed from Banking. Type over it if you paid something else.
11. When you have submitted the IRP6 on eFiling (on Turnover Tax, when you have made the interim payment), tap “✔️ Mark IRP6 P1 as filed” (P2 for Period 2, and TT02 instead of IRP6 on Turnover Tax). Before you tap it, the box under it asks whether you have paid: “Paid — record the money too” logs what you paid SARS as an expense under Tax — Provisional tax payable (Tax — Turnover tax payable on Turnover Tax), with the date and the account it left; “Not paid yet — just record the filing” keeps the record only. A period with no income or costs in it shows the button too, from 30 days before its deadline, so you can record a nil IRP6 (as R0, with no payment) — on Turnover Tax the TT02 is not submitted to SARS, so that only clears the reminder. It is not shown if the estimate comes to anything, for a period from before your books began, or to a login that can't view all the books it is worked from. Period 2 nets against what Period 1 was marked at; the Tax Jar counts the payment as money already set aside for that tax year, even if it leaves the bank after the year has ended; the annual return adds it back so it is never a cost of the business.

Understanding the numbers

The tool annualises your figures. For Period 1 it reads the first six months of the tax year — March to August — and doubles that (in the year a business opened, if you said so in Business details, it carries it to the end of February instead; with fewer than 30 days of Period 1 in your books it reads them as 30, because SARS needs an estimate every period; and a company in the tax year it was incorporated, once you give that date in Business details, has its own Period 1 — the six months from that day, due on the last of them — or none at all when that first year is six months or shorter, as SARS asks; and one whose first financial year runs to the second February — up to 15 months, as its Notice of Incorporation may set it — has nothing due for the tax year it was incorporated in, then Period 1 six months in and Period 2 at that first year's end), rather than doubling whatever has been logged to date, so a Period 1 estimate run in October is still an estimate of the first half. For Period 2 it works on the full year and takes off what you paid in Period 1 — read off the Period 1 filing you marked, unless you type over it. Neither period fills in months you haven’t logged yet, and a period only ends on the day its payment is due — so bring your books up to date first, and run the estimate as close to that date as you can. An asset sale’s recoupment or scrapping allowance, and the change in your stock counts, go in once — they are never doubled.

• On normal tax, costs SARS doesn’t allow — tax you paid, SARS penalties and interest, and donations without a section 18A receipt — are added back to your profit, the same as on your annual return.
• Sole proprietor or partner: your profit (your share, for a partner) is taxed on the SARS individual tables, then your age rebate and medical tax credits come off.
• Company, CC or co-operative: the flat company tax rate, with no rebates or medical credits — unless you marked it as an SBC, which uses a reduced sliding scale instead.
• Trust: the flat trust rate, with no rebates.
• Turnover Tax: the Sixth Schedule scale on your turnover, replacing income and provisional tax — no deductions, rebates or medical credits.
• Income is counted after VAT. If you are VAT-registered, the VAT portion of your sales is SARS's money passing through, so it is not treated as your income. Turnover Tax works on your turnover before costs, also without the VAT.

Submitting and paying

Worklog does not submit anything to SARS and does not pay for you. Once you have your estimate, submit the actual IRP6 return and pay on SARS eFiling (on Turnover Tax there is nothing to submit, only the interim payment to make), or hand your figures to your accountant or tax practitioner to do it.