Legal and Policy - 3 October 2024
Description
SARS
- 26 September 2024 – Prohibited and Restricted Imports and Exports list
Tariff heading 9601.10 requires a State Vet permit.
- 26 September 2024 – Your contributions as an SMME help to grow and strengthen our economy. SARS is dedicated to making it simple to meet your tax obligations. The goal of this newsletter is to give you simplified information and the guidelines you need to comply with your tax obligations.
- 26 September 2024 – General
- 26 September 2024 – Income Tax Act, 1962
- Interpretation Note 134 – Disposal of assets by deceased person, deceased estate, and transfer of assets between spouses
- 27 September 2024 – Since the implementation of the Two-Pot Retirement System on 1 September 2024, SARS has taken note of the challenges the industry is experiencing. To this end, various enhancements have been incorporated into IBIR-006 Tax Directives interim Interface Specification Version 6.707. These enhancements and changes inter alia include:
- Enhancing system parameters to accommodate an annual saving withdrawal benefit from various contracts held with the same fund instead of declining such directives as duplicate directive applications.
- Enhancing system parameters pertaining to the determination of annual income for the purposes of calculating tax on Savings Withdrawal Benefit directive applications
SARS has taken note of the fact that the annual remuneration has been underdeclared in some of the directive applications where the taxpayers are still employed, resulting in a nil or lower tax directive amount being issued. While there are valid instances where a zero declaration is correct, a nil or incorrect tax directive result will negatively impact these employed taxpayers resulting in the incurrence of a debt on assessment. SARS systems will therefore be enhanced to calculate the taxable amount based on information available to SARS and not necessarily on the annual remuneration value declared on the Savings Withdrawal Benefit directive application.
For more information, see the Tax Directives webpage.
- 27 September 2024 – Income Tax Act, 1962
- Draft Interpretation Note – Meaning of “similar finance charges”
Due date for comment: 8 November 2024
- 30 September 2024 – The state provides state warehouses for the safekeeping of goods. These are managed by Customs. The purpose of this list of unentered goods is to notify the importer, exporter and any other person that has interest in the goods that the goods have been taken up into the State warehouse and if they remain unentered they will be disposed in accordance with the provisions of the Customs & Excise Act.
See the latest Customs Weekly List of Unentered Goods here.
- 30 September 2024 – South Africa recorded a preliminary trade balance surplus of R5.6 billion in August 2024 attributable to exports of R165.6 billion and imports of R159.9 billion.
See the full media statement here.
Visit the Trade Statistics webpage.
- 30 September – Value-Added Tax Act, 1991
- Interpretation Note 83 (Issue 2) archived – Application of sections 20(7) and 21(5)
- 30 September 2024 – Value-Added Tax Act, 1991
- Binding General Rulings 27 archived – Application of sections 20(7) and 21(5)
- 30 September 2024 – Income Tax Act, 1962
- Draft Interpretation Note – Public benefit organisations: Non-professional sport and recreation
Due date for comment: 15 November 2024
- 1 October 2024 – RFP16/2024: Appointment of a Panel of service providers for the provision of Expert Advisory Services (Forensic Investigations, Valuations Advice and Debt Management)
- 1 October 2024 – Joint media statement: Investigating Directorate against corruption (IDAC) and the South African Revenue Service (SARS). A well-known television producer and businessman, Dumakude Mayivuke Ndlovu together with two of his co-accused, Rodney Mutsharini, a registered tax practitioner who assisted Ndlovu with his Personal Income Tax (PIT) and Maxwell Mloyi, who is an unregistered tax practitioner but assisted Ndlovu with his Company Income Tax (CIT), appeared before the Palm Ridge Specialised Commercial Crime Court on 18 charges of tax fraud relating to Ndlovu’s personal and company income tax valued at approximately R26 million.
The three were arrested on 30 September 2024 and formally charged for their alleged offences. Mutsharini and Mloyi made a brief appearance on the day of their arrest and their matter was postponed to today, 01 October 2024 for formal bail application. Meanwhile, Ndlovu made his first court appearance today and made a formal bail application. The court granted Ndlovu R100 000 bail while Mutsharini and Mloyi were granted R50 000 bail each. The matter was postponed to 11 November 2024 for further investigations. The court ordered Mloyi and Mutsharini to surrender their travel documents, report to their nearest police stations every Monday and should they wish to travel outside the borders of the country they should make an application with the court. Meanwhile, Ndlovu was ordered to report to a police at Sandton police station every Monday or Wednesday, notify the clerk of the court of his KwaZulu -Natal change of address and should submit an application to the court should he desire to travel outside the boarders of South Africa.
Their arrest and court appearance are as a result of a strengthened collaboration between the South African Revenue Service (SARS) and the Investigating Directorate Against Crime (IDAC) of the NPA, which uncovered an alleged collusion between the three in misrepresenting the personal tax affairs of Ndlovu and that of his company.
Following President Cyril Ramaphosa’s appointment as the President of the Republic, he established the Commission of Inquiry into the Tax Administration and Governance by SARS and subsequently appointed Judge Robert Nugent as the Commissioner. On 25 May 2018, Judge Nugent made recommendations for investigations to be conducted into the allegation of suspected fraud, corruption, and procurement irregularities with reference to the contravention of the Public Finance Management Act within SARS. Subsequently, IDAC authorized an investigation into the awarding of contracts by SARS, and the Commissioner of SARS was notified of these investigations with a view of mutual co-operation and information sharing.
The collaborative investigations between the two entities discovered that a company which formed part of the investigations, Bain and Company, was contracted by SARS to render services. This company allegedly sub-contracted Ambrobite (Pty) Ltd, now known as Kanoboya Consulting (Pty) Ltd, owned by Ndlovu, to render strategic and project management services between the period November 2013 to September 2016. This was however misrepresented by Ndlovu and his tax practitioner, Maxwell Mloyi, when submitting tax returns to SARS. Mloyi together with Ndlovu declared to SARS that the company was dormant and that it never traded during the tax period 2013 to 2017, resulting in a financial loss to SARS.
In relation to his personal income tax, it was discovered that he together with Rodney Mutsharini misrepresented his personal income tax return for the period 2016 to 2019.
Furthermore, they submitted his personal income tax return for the year 2020 and 2022, but neglecting to make a submission for the year 2021, which resulted in another financial loss to SARS. The total financial loss to SARS due to these alleged offences is estimated at approximately R26 million.
IDAC and SARS will continue to collaborate. Such partnerships enable Law Enforcement to deal with matters holistically.
Enquiries:
Henry Mamothame, IDAC – Spokesperson, 082 317 5731 and Sipithi Sibeko, SARS – Spokesperson, 072 381 5139
- 2 October 2024 – The Mpumalanga mobile tax unit schedules for October and November 2024 are now available.
- 2 October 2024 – Achieving our Vision 2024 of a smart, modern SARS with unquestionable integrity that is trusted and admired is of paramount importance. Pivotal to the delivery of our vision are our digital platforms & technology infrastructure.
Pursuant to our Vision and Strategic Objectives, which include modernising our systems to provide Digital and Streamlined online services, we are hard at work ensuring that our digital platforms & technology infrastructure are available, robust & secure, by performing regular upgrades, enhancements and maintenance.
SARS’s Procurement digital platform upgrades are scheduled for Friday, 4 October 2024 from 17:00 until 12:00 on Sunday, 6 October 2024.
During this time, you may experience intermittent service interruption on our Supplier registration and other Supplier Self-Service functionality in our procurement digital platforms.
- 2 October 2024 – Income Tax Act, 1962
- Draft Interpretation Note – Diminution in the value of closing stock
Due date for comment: 22 November 2024
- 2 October 2024 – Income Tax Act, 1962; Tax Administration Act, 2011
Income Tax Act 58 of 1962 — Section 25B — Section 26A — conduit principle — capital gains tax — beneficiaries
Tax Administration Act 28 of 2011 — understatement penalties — bona fide inadvertent error
SAFLII
- Thistle Trust v Commissioner for the South Africa Revenue Service (CCT 337/22) [2024] ZACC 19 (2 October 2024) – 2 October 2024
NATIONAL TREASURY
- Media Advisory: Invitation to Nominate Candidates to Serve on the Boards of Directors of the Public Investment Corporation, Sasria, and Land and Agricultural Development Bank – 30 September 2024
- Provisional Financing as at 30 September 2024 – 2 October 2024
- National Treasury Annual Report 2023/2024 – 2 October 2024
- Media statement Ms Tshabalala resignation as AFDB VP and confirmation as SA nominee of President – 2 October 2024
OECD
- Tax policy reforms 2024 – 30 September 2024
- Amended common reporting standard XLM Schema – 2 October 2024
- Crypto-asset reporting framework XLM Schema – 2 October 2024
OTO
- Be a smart taxpayer – 1 October 2024
Author | Legal and Policy |
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Date | 3 October 2024 |