# Regulatory Compliance Category > Tax Forum >  SARS announces 2011 Employer Filing Season

## Pastel Payroll Consultant

SARS has announced the 2011 Employer Filing Season:
04 April 2011 - 03 June 2011

This is the information we have so far:
http://www.sars.gov.za/Tools/Documen...p?FileID=66987 

The new version of SARS e@syFile that will need to be used for your submissions will be available on 04 April 2011.

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## Dave A

> The new version of SARS e@syFile that will need to be used for your submissions will be available on 04 April 2011.


That was an interesting one. I got this message from SARS saying update, and then another a day later saying the fudge equivalent of "oops, we're not ready yet." It sounds like they're having an interesting time sorting out the new "income tax number for everyone" functionality.

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## Pastel Payroll Consultant

The new Employer Filing Seasons commenced this Monday with the release of SARS e@syFile Version 4.2.6. Download it here:

http://downloads.sarsefiling.co.za/e.../easyfile.html

Be on the lookout though for any new e@syFile updates as we go along.

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## Dave A

Have you tested it yet?

Personally I'm waiting for the upcoming SARS workshop before tackling the mission this year.

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## Kryskros

Yes, I have, and it's a painful experience. I'd love to know if anyone else struggled with it.  

The shortcut on the desktop doesn't work:
When I managed to get it to open, a message read: You are not connected, but you can work offline....OK" and then it threw me off when I clicked on OK). 

When I did manage to get in to the program, a big red block hidden way down on the bottom margin declares, Status: Disconnected.  And there's no way apparent of getting connected.

The Call Centre genius said I need to call an IT guy.  

How dare they waste our time and resources like this?

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## Pastel Payroll Consultant

Hi guys,

There's a new version of SARS e@syFile out. Version 4.3.0. Download it from: http://downloads.sarsefiling.co.za/e.../easyfile.html

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## Dave A

Some quick updates on this:

The latest version of e@syfile is now 4.3.2 - if you are having trouble connecting to the update server, try upgrading to the latest version (it helped me - I think it's a time-out setting issue).

If you click the IT reg button for an employee and you get an error message about _failed to connect/try again later_, *keep trying* (after you've made sure you are connected to the internet of course  :Wink:  ). It took me four attempts to get it to work with a couple of my employees.

SARS seems really keen to help - they even called me to ask how this year's recon process is going. And after running through my issues were going to come out to see what was going wrong if I didn't come right after the version upgrade.

How's everyone else going with the recon on e@syfile this year?

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## Kryskros

Don't even ask!  What was the film  Mission Impossible about? SARS?

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## Dave A

It's starting to tick me off too. I've got two employees left that I just can't seem to be able to generate income tax numbers for. Tried synchronisation again this morning and got a message about them not being on record.

Called the helpline and the phone just rang until it disconnected.

Maybe Thursday or Friday SARS will get around to registering them and I will *finally* be able to submit the EMP501 return.  :Mad:

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## KimH

> It's starting to tick me off too. I've got two employees left that I just can't seem to be able to generate income tax numbers for. Tried synchronisation again this morning and got a message about them not being on record.
> 
> Called the helpline and the phone just rang until it disconnected.
> 
> Maybe Thursday or Friday SARS will get around to registering them and I will *finally* be able to submit the EMP501 return.


One of my clients had their payroll consultant there while I was at their offices today, and she was having the exact same problem - it's suspected that SARS server went down.
The consultant was bitching like mad, apparently she has to go back to clients 3 or 4 times because of this problem as well as the constant release of new versions of e@syfile. and the clients get irritated with her because she has to keep billing for her time.

Respect to the payroll consultants out there that deal with this on an ongoing basis.

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## Dave A

Oh FFS! Now the latest version is 4.3.3.

Apparently there was a problem with the synchronisation script in 4.3.2 - which is why the income tax numbers weren't being updated  :Frown: 

This time it better work!

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## Martinco

Does this mean I must now download and install again ?

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## Dave A

Yes - and to help improve your humour, so far it hasn't worked out very well.

On my first install attempt it crashed my laptop. I had to revert to a restore point, uninstall 4.3.2 again and install 4.3.3 again.

After that Synchronise just hung the first time I tried it - I gave it half an hour then logged out. 
Second time Synchronise only had one error - unable to update income tax reference numbers
Third time (and this happened while I'm online reading and typing this content now) it tells me I'm working in an offline state and I should try again when I'm online.

I'm taking the rest of the day off - from SARS e@syfiling anyway  :Banghead:

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## Martinco

I am supposed to do mine on Monday but reading this I think I am postponing this exercise.

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## Dave A

I just had another shot just on the off-chance.

Synchronisation did not return the two missing income tax numbers and when I do the IT reg it returns *Taxpayer not verified*

Enough is enough. I'm sending the two of them into SARS on Monday with strict instructions that they are not to return without their income tax numbers. I've had enough of working for SARS...

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## Martinco

Dave,

Have you managed to get your Efiling done with 4.3.3 ?
I am attempting tomorrow !

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## Martinco

Yes also FFS !  I have now downloaded twice and both times when unpacking  " the file is corrupt ! "  These guys are p*ss*ng me off now ! :Mad:

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## Dave A

I got there in the end (I think). 

EMP501's for 2011 period 2 are now submitted.I have an income tax reference number for every employee, although I did have to send a couple of them into SARS and get them to register the old fashioned face-to-face way - so about an 80% success rate for registration of employees for income tax via the e@syfile program.The synchronisation button did produce an income tax number for all but one employee who was already registered for income tax in the end. I solved that by insisting the staff member provide me his income tax number.IRP5's and IT3a's all seemed to generate fine.My EMP501 returns balance within a few cents.

However, my PAYE dashboard seems to indicate problems (minor - under R10.00 nett discrepancy somewhere) and the recon assistant doesn't seem to be working at this stage. 
I think there might be a historical reconciliation problem from a prior period  :Frown: 

So in summary, not exactly what I'd call e@sy  :Frown: 

I think I'm going to wander past a SARS office sometime in the next few days with my laptop, check everything is as it should be and iron out any wrinkles, current or historical.

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Martinco (24-May-11)

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