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How are employer and employee retirement contributions shown on my IRP5?
How are employer and employee retirement contributions shown on my IRP5?
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Direct answer
Your IRP5 should be read together with your fund tax certificate, annual benefit statement and payslips. Employer and employee retirement-fund contributions can affect payroll reporting and the ITR12 deduction calculation, but one document alone does not always show the full story.
If a certificate is wrong, do not replace or delete its prepopulated information in an attempt to fix it. Ask the employer or fund administrator for an explanation and, where appropriate, a correction to the source data submitted to SARS.
What this means in practice
Retirement funding can be paid through payroll, directly to a fund, or through a combination of arrangements. The fund type and terms can also differ. Your payslip may show an employee contribution, an employer contribution, a salary sacrifice or a retirement deduction. Your IRP5 shows payroll information supplied by the employer, while a fund document can contain annual contribution and membership information.
Those records need to match by tax year and member tax number. A difference is not automatically an error. It may result from timing, an employer contribution, a contribution outside payroll, a correction, a change of fund or the different role of each document. It is still worth resolving before you submit a return because a retirement contribution can affect the calculation under section 11F.
SARS explains that section 11F uses a statutory formula. For the 2027 tax year, the shared SARS facts register records a 27.5% limitation based on the greater of remuneration or taxable income, subject to the R430,000 annual cap. That is not a simple instruction to deduct the total shown on any certificate. The base, exclusions, other contributions and excess contribution rules remain relevant.
The most reliable approach is a three-way reconciliation. Compare payroll records, the IRP5 or IT3(a), and the fund's annual tax certificate. If you made a personal RA contribution, that may require a separate certificate and should not be expected to appear on an employer-issued IRP5.
Step-by-step
- Collect all annual records.
Download the IRP5 or IT3(a), the fund tax certificate, annual benefit statement and payslips for the same tax year. Check your tax number and member number on each document.
- Identify the contribution path.
Mark amounts deducted from salary, amounts paid by the employer, personal payments and any transfers. Note the months that relate to each amount.
- Compare the records carefully.
Check whether the documents use the same period and member details. Keep a written list of apparent differences rather than assuming they are all deductible or all errors.
- Ask payroll and the fund targeted questions.
Ask payroll how it reported employer and employee contributions, and ask the administrator for the annual certificate basis. Include the document reference and amount in your query.
- Review the prepopulated ITR12.
Compare its retirement information with your source documents. If the employer-supplied certificate is wrong, request a corrected certificate rather than manually altering the certificate data.
- Preserve the reconciliation.
Keep the final explanation, certificates, submitted ITR12 and ITA34 assessment. These are useful if SARS requests verification or an excess-contribution issue later arises.
Documents and records to keep
- IRP5 or IT3(a) and payslips.
- Fund tax certificate and annual member statement.
- RA tax certificate for personal contributions.
- Employer and fund correspondence.
- Contribution-reconciliation worksheet.
- ITR12 and ITA34 assessment.
Important limits and exceptions
This guide is a reconciliation workflow, not a source-code or deduction calculation manual. Fund type, payroll arrangement, personal RA contributions and an excess contribution history can alter the outcome. Do not assume a credit on a payslip is a tax deduction or that a fund statement replaces an IRP5.
If an employer has not submitted a certificate, or submitted it with incorrect data, the employer must correct its own source submission. Do not ignore a mismatch merely because the ITR12 is prepopulated.
When to get tailored advice
Get tailored advice if the difference is material, you changed employers or funds, contributed personally to an RA, have excess contributions from prior years or are nearing retirement. TaxProof can organise the certificate trail before a practitioner applies the current section 11F rules.
Related TaxProof guides
- Multiple IRP5 certificates on an ITR12
- Can I claim retirement-annuity contributions that are not on my IRP5? (B05-IND-005)