JOHANNESBURG – Thanks to TaxTim, South Africa's digital tax assistant, you can now get instant tax support via WhatsApp message or voice note.
Ahead of the July tax season, TaxTim launched its South African AI tax assistant TimAI on WhatsApp, making instant tax answers available to anyone in the country for free.
If you have a tax question, just send a message or voice note and get a clear answer in seconds.
For South Africans who do much of their day-to-day communication on WhatsApp and whose taxes remain one of the most widely misunderstood parts of their personal finances, it removes two of the biggest barriers to accessing help: high costs and where to get answers.
The voice memo option means that for most taxpayers who feel intimidated by their tax return, or who would prefer to ask a question in their own words rather than type a formal question, they can simply say their question aloud in an audio message and receive an understandable answer.
Unlike common AI tools that are trained on the open internet and often conflate South African tax law with foreign tax law, TimAI is specifically trained on South African tax law, official SARS documents, and over 10 years of real TaxTim filing data.
It is built with guardrails. If you don't know the answer, say so instead of making it up or guessing.
“Filing taxes is one of the most stressful tasks South Africans undertake every year, and much of that anxiety stems from not understanding the tax rules,” said Daniel Sweegers, director of TaxTim.
“Now that you can get trusted tax answers in just one WhatsApp message, we've taken a lot of the worry out of it. You also don't have to be a TaxTim customer to ask a question via WhatsApp.”
When tax filing season begins on July 13, TimAI will also be available on the TaxTim website to help customers prepare their tax returns.
It provides answers tailored to a customer's specific situation, rather than general guidance, based on the customer's own TaxTim history and past filings.
“On WhatsApp, TimAI provides fast and reliable answers to South Africans' tax questions,” Sweegers said.
“With the TaxTim platform, it's more personalized. Because the TaxTim platform knows your history with us, we can provide answers not just for your general taxes, but for specific returns as well. We become your personalized tax assistant.”
Started in 2011, TaxTim was launched with the goal of making tax filing easier and providing tax support to everyone, not just those who can afford an advisor.
TaxTim emphasizes that TimAI complements, rather than replaces, its team of human registered tax experts and can still handle complex cases that require human judgment.
TimAI is currently available on WhatsApp. Click here or send a WhatsApp message to +27 69 030 8700 to chat with Tim.
The in-platform version will launch on July 13, when the 2026 tax filing season begins.
TaxTim is South Africa's digital tax assistant that helps taxpayers quickly and easily complete and submit SARS-compliant returns through a simple, conversational online experience.
