About 1.7-million taxpayers have not yet filed their tax returns and were urged on Thursday to submit them online by the December 4 deadline.

The SA Revenue Service (Sars) warned that not filing a return would result in taxpayers facing administrative penalties.

The filing season for individual taxpayers who wanted to submit returns at a branch office closed on October 31.

“Sars wishes to thank taxpayers for their submissions thus far and is encouraged by the 3,882,111 personal income tax returns filed on a digital platform as well as at a branch. These returns include submissions for both current and previous years,” Sars said in a statement.

Non-provisional taxpayers (mostly salary earners) can still file a return on the Sars MobiApp and eFiling platforms until December 4.

“This gives the taxpayers who file electronically an extra three weeks to file. Provisional taxpayers have until January 31 on eFiling.”

Sars said with digital filing still available, it was still expecting an estimated 1,744,535 returns.

“Should the extended electronic filing period not be used, administrative penalties will be levied for every month the return is outstanding. The non-filing of returns is a criminal offence.”

Taxpayers with outstanding returns were urged to download the Sars MobiApp from the Play Store or App Store.

Taxpayers who meet all the following requirements need not submit a return: 

• If their total employment income for the year before tax was not more than R500,000;

• They received employment income from only one employer for the full tax year;

• Have no other form of income such as a car allowance, business or rental income, or income from another job; and

• They don’t have any additional allowable tax-related deductions to claim, such as  medical expenses, retirement annuity contributions and travel expenses.