The company-tax calendar that lives in one head
Company income tax, provisional tax, VAT, and payroll each run on their own SARS clock. Why a single compliance calendar beats one person's memory.
Every company on the book runs on its own clock, and that is the operational fact behind most of the late-night company-tax scrambles a practice has. A firm carrying twenty company clients is not tracking one deadline calendar, it is tracking twenty overlapping ones, each keyed off a different financial year-end, a different VAT category, and the same payroll tax year for all of them. C-Suite Holdings runs the company-tax compliance calendar for South African accounting practices, reading the data already in the practice software, so the place to start is understanding why the dates refuse to line up.
Why does every company client run on its own deadline clock?
The four company-tax filings key off different anchors, which is what pulls them out of sync. Company income tax (ITR14) and provisional tax (IRP6) both follow the company's financial year-end, VAT201 follows the VAT category and the calendar, and payroll (EMP201 and EMP501) follows the payroll tax year that runs 1 March to the end of February for every employer, whatever the company's own year-end happens to be.
So a client with a June year-end and a client with a February year-end share their payroll dates and almost nothing else, and the practice that treats company-tax deadlines as one shared calendar will miss the ones that move per client.
When are the main company-tax deadlines?
The dates below are the standard rhythm. Income tax and provisional tax shift with each company's year-end, so the worked examples assume a year of assessment ending in February.
| Filing | When it is due |
|---|---|
| ITR14 (company income tax) | Within 12 months of the financial year-end |
| IRP6 first period | Six months into the year of assessment (31 August for a February year-end) |
| IRP6 second period | The last day of the year of assessment (28 or 29 February) |
| IRP6 third payment (voluntary) | 30 September for a February year-end |
| VAT201 | The last business day of the month after the tax period (Categories A and B bi-monthly, Category C monthly) |
| EMP201 (monthly PAYE, UIF, SDL) | The 7th of the following month, moved earlier when the 7th is a weekend or public holiday |
| EMP501 reconciliation | Interim by 31 October, annual by 31 May |
Because South African public holidays and weekends pull several of these onto the preceding business day, the working date is rarely the date printed on the form, which is one more reason the calendar drifts when it lives in someone's memory.
What breaks when one person holds the calendar?
When the calendar lives in a senior's head or a spreadsheet only they maintain, the slowest-filing client quietly sets the pace for the whole book, and a single missed second-period estimate or a late EMP201 carries penalties and interest the firm usually absorbs rather than passes on. The load is not spread evenly either, because provisional, VAT, and payroll deadlines stack into the same weeks, so the pressure arrives as a wall rather than a stream.
The cost is rarely the penalty itself. It is the senior hours spent reconstructing where each client stands, the week before each deadline, instead of reviewing the returns that are actually ready.
What does a single compliance calendar change?
A single calendar makes every obligation visible against the documents already on file, generated from each entity's year-end and VAT and payroll registration and adjusted for South African business days, so the firm sees what is outstanding while there is still time to fix it. The deadline stops being a date someone has to remember and becomes a status the whole team can see.
C-Suite Commercial is the read-only compliance layer for this. It reads the data in the practice software, tracks company income tax, provisional tax, VAT, and payroll on one calendar, and surfaces whatever is still outstanding so the reviewer can sign it off before anything reaches SARS. It holds no write access to eFiling, the firm files, and sign-off stays on by default with a full audit log of who approved what.
How does a practice start without disrupting the season?
Start with the free arithmetic and a slice of the book, rather than a full switch. The free SARS provisional tax estimator runs the IRP6 numbers and the paragraph 20 thresholds today with no sign-up, and a short pilot proves the calendar on your hardest few clients before it ever runs the whole book.
To see how the compliance calendar would read your own client list, book a free Roadmap Session.
Frequently asked questions
When is the company income tax return due? The ITR14 is due within 12 months of the company's financial year-end, so the date moves with each client's year-end rather than sitting on a single national deadline.
Do provisional tax dates differ from the income tax return? Yes. The IRP6 first period falls six months into the year of assessment and the second on the last day of it, while the ITR14 follows 12 months after year-end.
Why is payroll on a different cycle? EMP201 and EMP501 follow the payroll tax year of 1 March to the end of February for all employers, which is independent of the company's own financial year-end.
This guide sets out the standard South African filing rhythm and links SARS guidance below. Dates that depend on a company's year-end or VAT category should be confirmed per client, and a registered practitioner signs off every filing.
Where to go next
- The penalty that rides on a low estimate: the cost of an underestimated IRP6.
- How the season exposes the gaps: provisional tax season exposes operational gaps.
- Why visibility is a commercial asset: client status visibility during filing season.