SARS PAYE Business Requirement Specification (BRS) – PAYE Employer Reconciliation_V23-0-0

This document specifies the requirements for the generation of an import tax file for the yearly as well as the interim submission. The requirements as defined in this version of the BRS will become effective from 1 March 2024 for Payroll Suppliers until replaced by an updated version. The changes will be implemented on the SARS systems in September 2024

GENERAL RULES FOR IMPORT FILE STRUCTURE
a. The record structure of the import file is as follows:
• Employer demographic header record
• Employee demographic, financial and ETI information records for all tax certificates
• Employer totals trailer record.

b. Each import file must only contain information for one employer.

c. The import file for an employer must contain the tax certificates of employees with a ‘year of assessment’ equal to or prior to the ‘transaction year’.
d. Any certificates for prior transaction years must comply with the rules as defined in this version of the BRS.

e. IRP5/IT3(a) and ITREG certificate type records may not be combined into one submission file. ITREG certificate type records must be included in a separate file since the transaction year may not be completed if the certificate type is ITREG.

f. The format of all codes in the import file must be code, information (e.g. 3015,”IRP5”) OR code, value (e.g. 3240,2) OR code, amount (e.g. 3601,5000 or 4102,500.00)
g. No amounts must be reported as a negative value

h. No field must contain a comma (,) or a pipe (|) in the value / amount
i. A field that has a zero value must not be completed, except if specified otherwise in the field validation rules

j. The cents for all Rand amounts must be dropped off/omitted (rounded down) except for codes 4101, 4102, 4115, 4141, 4142, 4149, 4116, 4118, 4120, 6030, 7002, 7003, 7004 and
7008 where the Rand value including the cents must be specified (even if it is zero).
k. The format for all dates must be either CCYYMMDD or CCYYMM or CCYY

l. All Alpha, AlphaNumeric and Free Text fields (indicated with ‘A’, ‘AN’ and ‘FT’ respectively in File Layout below) must be contained in opening and closing double quotation marks, e .g. the surname of Horn must be shown as 3030,”Horn”

m. Data fields cannot start with a space

n. To reduce the volume of data, the number of income source codes is restricted to 20, and the number of employee and employer deduction codes is restricted to 12. To make this possible, certain source codes have been specified as ‘sub -codes’ and their values must be consolidated into a ‘main’ source code on the certificate. The rules for consolidation of sub – codes into main codes can be obtained in section 6 of this document. Sub-codes may be held within the payroll system but must not be written to the import file or printed on tax certificates.
o. The monthly ETI data must be added to the end of the tax certificate information for every employee that qualifies for ETI. ETI data must be reported for all months in the reconciliation period. For the interim bi-annual submission, 6 months of ETI data (from March until August) must be reported, and for the final submission, 12 months of ETI data (from March until February) must be reported. The ETI data must be reported in the following manner:

• If the employee does not qualify for ETI in terms of the ETI Act (Employment Tax Incentive Indicator = N) in the reconciliation period, then the ETI fields must not be completed
• If the employee qualifies for ETI in terms of the ETI Act (Employment Tax Incentive Indicator = Y) for one or more months in the reconciliation period, then all ETI codes and
values must be completed for all the months in the reconciliation period as per the validation rules for each code
Note: No ETI related fields must be printed on the IRP5 certificate that is issued to the employee

p. Tax certificates require at least one income code with a value greater than zero, except for remuneration in respect of code 3615 which may be zero.