Today is the end of the tax year. Later in the year, your tax advisor (hopefully us!) will be requesting information as of today's date. To help you avoid the pain and effort involved in trying to reconstruct this information later, we have prepared a spreadsheet of the information you will need - relax its short and sweet!
The spreadsheet is free, and can be used whether we do you tax or not. It can be downloaded by clicking on this link : http://www.twigg.co.za/Tax Information.xls
Yesterday saw the presentation by Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan of the annual budget speech.
What does this mean for you and I?
Any budget is about balancing the amount of money that comes in with the amount of money that goes out. Increase what goes out (“creating jobs, reducing poverty, building infrastructure and expanding our economy”) and you must either increase what comes in (taxes) or borrow (deficit).
Minister Gordhan’s challenge was to increase spending (we all want more money spent on education and healthcare) while decreasing our tax burden – oh yes, we are not too keen on the idea of borrowing money either….how has this been achieved?
In his Medium term budget speech, Pravin Gordhan announced the relaxation of certain foreign exchange allowances. In particular, the Foreign Capital Allowance and the Single Discretionary Allowance, which have both been significantly increased "to encourage diversification of portfolios and remove unnecessary limitations"
SARS has widely reported the changes to the provisional tax system in the media. Part of these changes relate to those who do not need to submit an IRP6 (provisional tax return) anymore.
A common misunderstanding is that if you have no tax to pay, ie the net result of your return would be nil, then you don't have to submit a return. This is NOT the case.
The South African Revenue Services has come a long way in recent years. As a young man just entering the working class, I can remember braving the walk down Rissik Street in Johannesburg to stand in long queues in overcrowded rooms with people who clearly did not share my sense of hygiene...
Those days are thankfully gone! You can (and almost have to) now submit your tax return online. Great....or is it?
It is great to see that an additional R12.2 billion will be spent on child support grants, and an extra R15.1 billion for teachers (that could be nine or twelve zeros for a billion - nine I presume) but what does that mean to me and you. R12.2 billion sounds much better than an in increase of 4.17% or R10 per month for each child support grant - not even keeping up with inflation!
inflation.For a more detailed look at the highlights of this years budget click here (pdf file 118kb)
"Those boxes at the back of the garage marked Accounting Records: ABC CC 1995...can I thow them away?"
How long do you need to keep those dust filed, moth eaten records that one has ever or will ever look at?
As part of SARS' recent media release emphasising the implementation of its new tough penalty regime, SARS is threatening to take the money from your bank or your employer.
"Can they do this?" you ask in despair.
On 14 October 2009, SARS issued a media release indicating that it would be enforcing the new penalty regime with effect from 23 November 2009. In summary, non-compliant taxpayers will attract a monthly penalty based on their income of at least R250 per month for EACH outstanding return. The details of these penalties can be found here.
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