Category: Tax
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Dividends tax returns
With effect from 1 April 2012, dividends tax was introduced to replace the then “secondary tax on companies” (or “STC”). The tax is currently levied at 20%. The dividends tax regime brought with it a requirement for dividends tax returns to be submitted periodically (if even no liability for dividends tax arose) and we wish […]
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SARS to intensify action against tax offenders
Despite the fact that SARS has upheld their philosophy of education, service, and thereafter enforcement, they have noticed an increase in taxpayers not submitting their tax returns by the stipulated deadlines, and not settling their outstanding debt with SARS. This is not limited to the current tax year but includes substantial non-compliance across previous tax […]
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Treasury moves to close CGT avoidance loophole through share buybacks
Where one company previously sought to dispose of its shares in another company, it was able to do so without incurring an exposure for capital gains tax (“CGT”) or dividends tax, if that disposal were structured as an issue of shares by the target company to the “purchaser”, followed by a corresponding buyback of shares […]
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Tax residence for individuals
According to the South African Revenue Service (SARS), South Africa has a residence-based tax system, which means residents are, subject to certain exclusions, taxed on their worldwide income, irrespective of where their income was earned. By contrast, non-residents are taxed on their income from a South African source. In an increasingly global society where individuals […]
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The 2017 tax season is open
The Commissioner for SARS recently published the annual notice to officially ‘open’ the 2017 tax season. Individuals are now able to file their annual income tax returns for the 2017 year of assessment (which ended on 28 February 2017) from 1 July, and we request that our clients contact us so that we can arrange […]
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Non-executive directors’ remuneration: VAT and PAYE
Two significant rulings by SARS, both relating to non-executive directors’ remuneration, were published by SARS during February 2017. The rulings, Binding General Rulings 40 and 41, concerned the VAT and PAYE treatment respectively to be afforded to remuneration paid to non-executive directors. The significance of rulings generally is that it creates a binding effect upon […]
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VAT and Common Law Theft
A recent decision has created some interest in whether the taxpayers failing to pay over the correct amounts of VAT can be charged – in addition to other statutory crimes prescribed by the VAT Act, 89 of 1991 – with the common law crime of theft. In Director of Public Prosecutions, Western Cape v Parker[1] […]
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Apportionment of VAT input claims
Generally speaking, the VAT portion of expenditure incurred by a VAT vendor in carrying on its enterprise may be claimed back from SARS when the VAT vendor submits is VAT returns on a periodical basis. Typically, these input tax claims are set off against the output tax liability that the VAT vendor may have. However, […]
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Bracket creep, VAT and the 2017 Budget
Year on year the personal income tax tables are adjusted and based on which individuals are taxed based on an increasing sliding scale based on their income earned and therefore into which tax bracket they would fall. The annual adjustments are partly to provide for tax relief or an additional burden on certain salary earners, […]
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Crunching the numbers: Budget 2017
It is an astounding exercise to go through the numbers behind the annual national budget presented recently and to start to understand what it is that the various tax changes are aimed at achieving. On 22 February 2017, Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan presented South Africa’s biggest budget yet, providing for budgeted Government expenditure over the […]
