THE South African Revenue Service (SARS) has warned e-filling users that the system will be down on Friday, 9 December. In a statement on Wednesday‚ spokesperson Sandile Memela said, it is expected to be out of service between 3pm and 10pm.

“We wish to inform taxpayers that its eFiling system will be unavailable on Friday 9 December between 3pm and 10pm due to a substantial IT system upgrade and maintenance. We apologise to all taxpayers for the inconvenience,” he said.

SARS has thus far received more than 5.3 million tax returns.

In terms of the channels used to file tax returns, the scales are tipping towards eFiling, as a total of 50.05 per cent tax returns were filed via eFiling while 49.94 per cent returns were filed at a branch. A very small percentage (0.01 per cent) has been filed manually via post so far.