USE OF A REGISTERED TAX PRACTITIONER

Tax Practitioner is a natural person, who provides advice to another person with respect to the application of a tax Act or completes or assists in completing a return by another person. A tax practitioner must be registered with a recognised controlling body, as well as SARS, under the provisions of section 240(1) of the Tax Administration Act 28 of 2011.

A registered tax practitioner has a designated PR number from SARS, which can be verified here: Tax Practitioner Registration Status (sarsefiling.co.za)

The tax practitioner’s SARS registration number is in the following format: PR0000000, where the PR is followed only by numbers, NO letters.

SARS periodically reviews the status of all registered tax practitioners and the underlying conditions of their registrations. If SARS finds that a tax practitioner is in breach of section 240(3) of the Tax Administration Act 28 of 2011, then a deregistration as tax practitioner process is followed by SARS.

It is thus important that taxpayers ensure that they use only registered tax practitioners, by verifying their current registration status at SARS.

There are several persons who are not registered with SARS as tax practitioners, but who use their PR numbers from before the commencement of the Tax Administration Act. The old PR numbers contain a combination of numbers and letters. This is an outdated old format, which is not valid and the respective PR numbers are not valid.

There is a designated tax practitioner’s section on every tax return for all tax types. This section is activated only if the question of whether the return is being completed by a tax practitioner, is answered with a “Yes”. On this section, the tax practitioners must complete their professional contact details, as well as their designated PR numbers.

SARS has found that tax practitioners sometime provide their own contact details on their clients’ (taxpayers) registrations, amendments and verification form (RAV01). According to SARS this is a misrepresentation of taxpayers’ information, and it is unacceptable practice. It prevents taxpayers from receiving communication from SARS when SARS needs to contact the taxpayers directly. Therefore, the tax practitioners are required to complete their details under the “tax practitioner section”. This section is only available to registered tax practitioners, who have current PR numbers from SARS. A person, who is not registered with SARS as a tax practitioner, will not be able to use this section, and most probably provide SARS with their own contact details on the taxpayer’s section, a practice, unacceptable to SARS, as already stated.