Provisional tax for clients with rent or interest
When a South African individual with rental, interest or side income becomes a provisional taxpayer, the exclusions, and who must request the IRP6.
By Achekam · · 4 min read · For Accountants & audit firms in South Africa
A salaried client inherits a flat and starts letting it. Another client retires, and her income now comes partly from a pension and partly from interest on a fixed deposit. A third starts doing weekend photography for cash. None of them think of themselves as being in business, and none of them has heard of the IRP6.
Each of them may now be a provisional taxpayer. The test is not whether someone runs a business but what kind of income they receive, and the exclusions are narrower than clients assume. This article explains when an individual crosses the line, who is responsible for noticing, and how a practice can collect what it needs.
Income other than salary is the trigger
SARS says any person who receives income other than remuneration is a provisional taxpayer. For an individual, that brings in rental from the flat, interest above any exclusion, and the photography fees. A salary taxed through PAYE is remuneration; the rest is not.
The definition is wide on purpose. Provisional tax collects tax during the year on income that has no employer deducting tax at source.
The exclusions for individuals
SARS says a natural person with no business income is not a provisional taxpayer if either:
- their taxable income will not exceed the tax threshold, which for the 2027 tax year is R99 000 for a person under 65; or
- their income from interest, foreign dividends, rental and remuneration from an unregistered employer will not exceed R30 000.
The thresholds for older taxpayers are higher. SARS's employer guide gives the 2027 tax thresholds as R99 000 for persons under 65, R153 250 for persons 65 and older, and R171 300 for persons 75 and older. These figures change each year, so use the ones for the year you are working on.
Note what the exclusions do and do not cover. The first condition in SARS's statement is "no business income". The photography client is earning fees for a service; whether that is business income is the first question to answer, because if it is, the exclusions above do not help. The landlord and the retiree are the more typical cases for the R30 000 test, and the test is on the total from all those sources together, not each one separately.
The onus sits with the taxpayer
SARS says the onus is on the taxpayer to determine whether they are liable for provisional tax and to request and submit the IRP6 return through eFiling.
SARS will not necessarily tell a client that they have become a provisional taxpayer. The practice, if it looks after the client, is usually the only party in a position to notice, and the client is the one who bears the consequence if nobody does.
The dates once a client is in
SARS says the first provisional payment is due within six months of the start of the year of assessment, which is 31 August for a year starting in March, and the second by the last business day of the year of assessment, which is the last business day of February. If the date is not a business day, payment is due on the last business day before it.
For the newly provisional client, the first year is the awkward one: they may already be past the first date before anyone realises. Deal with that as soon as it is found rather than waiting for the second payment. The general rules on who is a provisional taxpayer are set out in who is a provisional taxpayer.
Collecting the figures from clients
An IRP6 estimate needs numbers the client holds: the rental agreement and rent received, the bond interest and rates on the flat, the interest certificate from the bank, and the photography invoices. Clients rarely send them unprompted.
In Achekam, staff can create, send and track requests to clients for documents, answers and confirmations in one RFI console, whichever screen the request was raised from. A request set for a client with rental income might be:
- Lease agreement and a schedule of rent received for the year to date.
- Bond statement showing interest paid.
- Municipal rates and levies statements.
- Interest certificates from every bank account.
- Confirmation of any other income, such as fees or commission.
Sending the same set every year, a few weeks before each payment date, turns a scramble into a routine.
The client's own record sits in the firm's client directory, where staff add clients through a wizard or a CSV import and can edit them later. Use that record to note that the client is now a provisional taxpayer, so the next person who picks up the file knows.
Filing stays on eFiling
Achekam does not submit tax returns or payroll declarations to SARS. The practice files the IRP6 itself on eFiling and records the filing in Achekam. Recording it matters: when the client asks next year what was declared, the answer should be on their file rather than in someone's eFiling history. How that split works across a practice's tax work is covered in exporting and tracking client tax work.
Questions to ask every individual client
At each annual meeting, ask whether the client:
- received rent from any property, including a room or a cottage;
- earned interest or foreign dividends, and roughly how much;
- did any work for which no PAYE was deducted;
- turns 65 or 75 during the coming year.
Any "yes" is a reason to test the client against the exclusions before the next August.
SARS's page on provisional tax
SARS's provisional tax page explains who is a provisional taxpayer, the exclusions and when payments are due. Send the relevant section to any client whose answers above put them near the line, together with the practice's request list.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
