SARS · Verification & audit response
SARS has asked you for supporting documents.
You have 21 business days. Here’s what a SARS verification letter means, what a proper response looks like — and who does it.
If you are searching for help with a SARS verification letter, that is what Accounting Connect does: we prepare and submit the response, for individuals and owner-managed businesses anywhere in South Africa. If the 21 business days lapse, SARS can assess you on the information it already holds — and the letter is far cheaper to answer than the assessment is to unwind.
The work is done by Brandon Iverach, Professional Accountant (SA) and Registered SARS Tax Practitioner PR-0025122.
Verify this number with SARS before you contact us
This is SARS audit defence: we act as your representation, deal with SARS directly on your behalf, and where an assessment is wrong we prepare and lodge the objection. Brandon Iverach is a registered SARS tax practitioner (PR-0025122) and a member of the South African Institute of Professional Accountants (SAIPA), membership 18504.
Send us the letter and we will tell you what it is actually asking for.
01 · What it means
What the letter actually means.
A verification — SARS is asking you to substantiate what you already declared. It is not an accusation. It is a request for the documents behind the numbers on your return.
An audit — Broader. SARS examines the underlying records and may look beyond the single item that triggered it, and beyond a single year of assessment.
SARS now expressly distinguishes between the two. Both arrive with a deadline, and the deadline is the part people miss.
02 · The deadline
The 21-day clock.
You generally have 21 business days to respond. If that deadline lapses, SARS may raise a revised assessment on the information it already holds — which is, by definition, the information that prompted the query. An understatement penalty can reach 200% of the shortfall.
The assessment is not the end of the road. But it is considerably harder, slower and more expensive to unwind an assessment than to answer a letter on time.
03 · If something was left out
Say it at the first call.
A verification does not automatically close the door on the Voluntary Disclosure Programme under section 226(2) of the Tax Administration Act. From 1 March 2026, remission of interest can be requested together with a VDP application. If you know something is missing, say so at the first call. It changes the options available to you, and the options narrow the longer you wait.
04 · The response
What a proper response pack contains.
- 01An accountant's covering letter, cross-referenced item by item to the SARS letter
- 02A contents page
- 03Annexures A onward, each behind a divider
- 04A reconciliation tying every figure back to the ITA34
- 05Continuous page numbering throughout
- 06One PDF, under 5MB, in the format SARS accepts
The formality is not ceremony. A SARS official has a queue, and a response they can follow in five minutes gets a different outcome to one they have to reconstruct.
05 · What happens next
Send the letter first.
We tell you what it is actually asking for, which documents you will need, and which of them have to come from a third party — a medical scheme, a retirement fund, a bank, an employer. Those are the ones that run you out of time, so they get started first.
Send us the letter.
Fastest is WhatsApp. Or book a call and we’ll talk it through.
Accounting Connect (Pty) Ltd · Reg 2018/528820/07 · Oudtshoorn, Western Cape. We are not connected to any other firm trading under a similar name.