Got an SMS or email from SARS saying you’ve been auto-assessed? It’s tempting to glance at the number, breathe a sigh of relief that you don’t have to file a return, and move on with your day. Most of the time, that’s perfectly fine. But “most of the time” isn’t “always” and a few minutes of checking now can save you a much bigger headache later.
Here’s what an auto-assessment actually is, where SARS gets its numbers from, and exactly what’s worth double-checking before you accept.
What is an auto-assessment?
An auto-assessment is a tax return that SARS completes on your behalf, using information it already has from third parties, rather than information you submit yourself. For the 2026 filing season, SARS issued these between 1 and 12 July, targeting taxpayers whose affairs are considered relatively straightforward typically people earning a salary with PAYE already deducted by their employer.
If you agree with the outcome, you genuinely don’t need to do anything further. If a refund is due and your banking details are correct, it gets paid out automatically. If you disagree, you can correct and submit your own return instead but only within the deadline that applies to you.
The convenience is real. The catch is that “SARS already has the data” doesn’t mean “SARS definitely has the right data.”
What SARS bases your auto-assessment on
Your auto-assessment is built entirely from third-party data that other institutions have already submitted to SARS on your behalf, including:
- Your employer – salary, PAYE deducted, and any fringe benefits (IRP5/IT3(a) certificate data)
- Your bank – interest earned on savings and investment accounts
- Your medical scheme – medical aid contributions and, where applicable, qualifying out-of-pocket medical expenses
- Your retirement fund(s) – retirement annuity contributions, pension and provident fund data
- Other institutions – such as insurers, for certain policy-related income or lump sums
In other words, SARS is assembling your tax return from a patchwork of separate submissions made by other organisations. That system works well when every one of those submissions is complete, accurate, and actually reached SARS in time. It works less well when even one piece is missing or wrong, and you’re the one who’ll notice, because SARS won’t necessarily flag a gap it doesn’t know exists.
What to check before you accept
Before you accept an auto-assessment — or decide it’s fine to simply do nothing — run through this list:
1. Are all your certificates accounted for?
If you changed jobs during the tax year, contributed to more than one retirement fund, or moved medical schemes, make sure data from every institution made it into the assessment. A missing IRP5 from a previous employer, or a retirement annuity certificate that didn’t arrive in time, can leave your auto-assessment incomplete without any obvious warning sign.
2. Do the third-party values actually match your own records?
Pull up your own IRP5, medical aid tax certificate, and any investment/interest certificates, and compare the figures line by line against what SARS has used. Third-party data isn’t infallible, administrative errors on the institution’s side do happen, and an incorrect value can just as easily work against you as in your favour.
3. Has anything about your circumstances changed?
An auto-assessment reflects what SARS’s data sources know, not necessarily your full financial picture. It’s worth pausing if, during the tax year, you:
- Earned any additional income outside your salary (freelance work, rental income, a side business)
- Sold an asset that could trigger capital gains tax
- Had significant out-of-pocket medical expenses not fully captured by your medical scheme
- Made a retirement annuity contribution outside of a payroll deduction
- Changed your tax residency status
None of these would necessarily appear in an auto-assessment unless the relevant third party reported it — which means the responsibility for flagging it sits with you.
4. Does the bottom line make sense?
This sounds obvious, but it’s the fastest gut-check available: does the refund or amount owing look roughly in line with your expectations based on the year you had? A number that’s meaningfully higher or lower than you’d expect is worth investigating before you let it stand.
If something looks wrong
If you spot a discrepancy, you’re not stuck with the auto-assessment as-is. You can correct and submit your own return through eFiling or the SARS MobiApp within the deadline that applies to your taxpayer category. It’s a straightforward process — but it does mean gathering the correct supporting documents and, in some cases, contacting the third party that submitted the incorrect data so they can fix it at the source.
Our advice
An auto-assessment is a genuine convenience for the taxpayers whose data is complete and correct and for a lot of people, it will be. But “SARS did the maths for me” is not the same as “SARS had everything it needed to do the maths correctly.” A five-minute check against your own certificates is a small price for the certainty that your assessment actually reflects your year.
