IT3(d) returns for section 18A receipts
Every South African section 18A organisation reports its donation receipts to SARS on the IT3(d). The two dates, null returns and the IT3-02 declaration.
By Achekam · · 4 min read · For Accountants & audit firms in South Africa
A donor's tax return claims a deduction for a donation to a children's home, and SARS has questions about it. The donor phones the home, irritated. The home phones its accountant, and the first thing everyone wants to know is what the home told SARS about that receipt, and when.
That chain is why the IT3(d) matters. A South African organisation with section 18A approval does not only issue receipts; it reports them to SARS, twice a year, on fixed dates. This article explains who must submit, when, what to do in a period with no receipts, and how a firm can keep the evidence in order.
Every approved section 18A entity submits
SARS says all approved section 18A entities must submit IT3(d) third-party data on the tax-deductible receipts they issue, as required by Public Notice 3631 of June 2023.
The duty follows the approval, not the size of the organisation or the number of receipts. A small church with a section 18A approval and a handful of donors is in the same position as a national charity. And SARS says only organisations granted section 18A approval by its Tax Exempt Institutions unit may issue tax-deductible receipts, and only for donations used for approved public benefit activities, so an organisation issuing receipts without approval has a different and more serious problem.
Two submissions a year
SARS gives two due dates:
| Period covered | Due by |
|---|---|
| 1 March to 31 August | 31 October |
| The full year of assessment, 1 March to the end of February | 31 May |
The second submission covers the whole year, not only the second half. So the receipts reported at the end of October are reported again, with the rest of the year's receipts, by the end of May. Reconciling the two is a useful check: a receipt that appears in the first submission and is missing from the second needs an explanation.
Note that the dates follow the tax year starting in March, whatever the organisation's own financial year-end. A non-profit with a June year-end still reports on SARS's cycle, so its receipt register has to be cut off at the end of August and the end of February as well as at its own year-end.
Periods with no receipts
SARS says a section 18A entity that issued no receipts in a period must submit a null declaration.
This is the obligation organisations most often miss. A quiet half-year with no donors who wanted receipts can feel like a period with nothing to report. SARS treats it as a period with a declaration to make. Put both dates in the diary for every section 18A client, whether or not you expect receipts.
The IT3-02 declaration completes it
SARS says an IT3(d) submission is only complete once the IT3-02 declaration has been submitted.
The data and the declaration are two steps. An organisation that uploads its receipt data but never submits the declaration has not finished, even though the data is with SARS. When recording that a submission was made, record both steps, with their dates.
What the firm needs from the client
The IT3(d) is built from the organisation's own receipt records, and the quality of those records decides how painful the submission is. Before each due date, request:
- the receipt register for the period, listing every receipt issued;
- copies of cancelled or reissued receipts, with the reason;
- confirmation of any donations received for which no receipt was requested;
- for the full-year submission, confirmation that the first half's receipts are unchanged.
Receipts themselves now carry more information than they used to; what a section 18A receipt must show explains the additional details SARS requires from the 2026/2027 tax year.
A work item for each submission
In Achekam, each work item lists the procedures to perform and the documents required. A step is marked done only with a written response and its documents, or set aside with a reason, and steps are never deleted.
An IT3(d) work item for each period might hold these steps:
- Receipt register received and agreed to the donations recorded in the books.
- Data prepared for the period, or the null declaration prepared.
- Data submitted, with confirmation attached.
- IT3-02 declaration submitted, with confirmation attached.
- For the full year: first-half receipts reconciled to the annual data.
A step cannot be ticked off with nothing behind it, so the work item becomes the record of what was submitted and when.
Keeping the copies where the next person can find them
The Document Centre in Achekam is a vault with a folder per client, where staff upload files and folders, keep versions, tag, archive and restore with a reason, and search. For a section 18A client, a simple folder habit pays off: one folder per tax year, with the receipt register, the submitted data, the IT3-02 confirmation and any SARS correspondence, tagged with the period they cover.
When a donor's claim is queried years later, the question "what did we report for that receipt?" can then be answered from the vault rather than from someone's memory. The client's wider yearly duties are covered in keeping a PBO's approval in good order.
Read SARS's page before the next due date
SARS's page on section 18A and IT3(d) third-party data sets out who must submit, the submission periods and the receipt requirements. The page showed a March 2026 update at the time of writing; check it again before each of the two dates, and agree with the client's board who signs off the data before it goes.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
