SARS apologises for site crashing on the first day of tax filing season

CapeTalk's Lester Kiewit speaks to Nicolas Botha, Tax Team Compliance Manager.

Listen below: 

The South African Revenue Service (SARS) announced the official start of the 2025 Filing Season, effective from 7 July 2025 to 20 October 2025. 

However, the online system crashed on the first day. 

The auto-assessments process did not go smoothly for many.

Taxpayers were left frustrated because they could not log onto eFiling or the MobiApp to confirm or settle their assessments. 

Tax practitioners were also unable to process income tax filing and EMP201 declarations due to the system overloads.

SARS apologised to taxpayers and tax practitioners on social media. 

“Our system is currently experiencing unusually high traffic volumes. We value your experience and appreciate your patience as our dedicated teams work diligently to resolve the issue and restore full service as quickly as possible. We apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused.”

Botha says it was a "struggle" to get in and out online.

"I'm expecting it to hopefully cool down after the 20th [July] once different batches have gone out."

- Nicolas Botha, Tax Team Compliance Manager

Scroll up to the audio player to listen to the full conversation.