Authored by: Jean du Toit, Head of Tax Technical at Tax Consulting SA
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The President has given effect to the 2020 tax proposals by signing three tax Acts into law. On 15 January 2021, the President gave his assent to the Rates and Monetary Amounts and Amendment of Revenue Laws Act No. 22 of 2020 (“Rates Act”), the Taxation Laws Amendment Act No. 23 of 2020 (“TLAA”) and the Tax Administration Laws Amendment Act No. 24 of 2020 (“TALAA”). These Acts were promulgated on 20 January 2021.

The Rates Act gives effect to changes in tax rates and certain monetary thresholds, whereas the TLAA and the TALAA contain more profound technical and administrative changes. Highlighted below are 10 key changes taxpayers need to know.  

1.Withdrawal of retirement funds upon emigration
From 1 March 2021, taxpayers will no longer be able to access their retirement benefits upon completion of the emigration process through the South African Reserve Bank, commonly referred to as “financial emigration”. After this date, taxpayers will only be able to access their retirement benefits if they can prove they have been non-resident for tax purposes for an uninterrupted period of three years. Importantly, taxpayers can still access their retirement benefits under the old dispensation if they file their financial emigration application on or before 28 February 2021. If you miss this deadline, your retirement benefits will be locked in for a period of at least three years

2.Anti-avoidance rules bolstered for trusts
The anti-avoidance rules aimed at curbing tax-free transfers of wealth to trusts have been strengthened to prevent persisting loopholes. The amendment is directed at structures where individuals subscribe for preference shares with no or a low rate of return in a company owned by a trust connected to the individual. Ongoing changes to these rules again bring into question the thinking that trust structures are tax efficient.

3.Reimbursing employees for business travel expenses
Employees are not subject to tax on an amount paid by their employer as an advance or reimbursement in respect of meals and incidental costs where the employee is obliged to spend a night away from home for business purposes, provided it does not exceed the amount published in the Government Gazette. The TLAA includes an amendment which extends the treatment to expenses incurred on meals and other incidental costs while the employee is away on a day trip. It is important to note that this will only apply if the employer’s policies expressly make provision for and allows such reimbursement.

4.Relief for expats confirmed
Due to the travel restrictions under the Covid-19 pandemic, the days requirement for the foreign employment exemption has been reduced from 183 days in aggregate to 117 days. The relaxation only applies to the aggregate number of days and the requirement that more than 60 of the days spent outside South Africa must have been consecutive remains applicable. This amendment is not a permanent fixture and will only apply to any 12-month period for the years of assessment ending from 29 February 2020 to 28 February 2021.

5.Employer provided bursaries
The Income Tax Act makes provision for the exemption of bona fide bursaries or scholarships granted by employers to employees or their relatives. Historically, employees used this exemption as a mechanism to structure their remuneration package to reduce their tax liability. The exemption will no longer apply where the employee’s remuneration package is subject to an element of salary sacrifice; that is where any portion of their remuneration is reduced or forfeited as a result of the grant of such a bursary or scholarship. 

6.Tax treatment of doubtful debts
The doubtful debt allowance provision has been amended to bring parity between taxpayers that apply IFRS 9 and those who do not. Where the taxpayer does not apply IFRS 9, the amount of the allowance is calculated after taking into account any security that is available in respect of that debt.

7.Roll-over amounts claimable under the ETI
The Employment Tax Incentive Act has been amended to encourage tax compliance. The amendment determines that excess ETI claims of employers that are non-compliant from a tax perspective will no longer be rolled over to the end of the PAYE reconciliation period.

8.Estimated assessments
The terms under which SARS may issue an assessment based on an estimate has been expanded. SARS may now issue an estimated assessment where the taxpayer fails to respond to a request from SARS for relevant material. The amendment also bars the taxpayer from lodging an objection against the estimated assessment until the taxpayer responds to the request for material.

9.SARS can withhold your refund if you are under criminal investigation
In terms of the Tax Administration Act, SARS is entitled to withhold refunds owed to taxpayers in certain circumstances. The TALAA expands these provisions to determine that if you are subject to a criminal investigation in terms of the Tax Administration Act, SARS is entitled to withhold any refund it owes you, pending the outcome of the investigation. 

10.Criminal sanctions for minor tax offences
Previously, a taxpayer would only be guilty of a criminal offence for non-compliance under the Tax Administration Act if they “wilfully” failed to comply with their tax obligations. With the new amendments, non-compliance will constitute a criminal offence where it is as a result of the taxpayer’s negligence. In other words, intent is no longer required; where you are non-compliant as a result of ignorance of your obligations, you may be found guilty of a criminal offence. These offences are subject to a fine or imprisonment of up to two years.

Final comments
Taxpayers need to speak to their advisors to understand these changes and special heed must be paid to the administrative changes that are now law. The most important change that applies to all taxpayers is the one that criminalises negligent non-compliance. This and other administrative changes mean that taxpayers will be held to a higher standard, which serves as a cue for everyone to take ownership of their tax affairs.
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ENDS

 
MEDIA CONTACT: Rosa-Mari Le Roux, 060 995 6277, rosa-mari@thatpoint.co.za, www.atthatpoint.co.za

ABOUT Tax Consulting SA:
Tax Consulting SA offers a streamlined service in the calculation and filing of individual income tax returns, provisional income tax returns or any other more complex individual tax relate matters. Our highly qualified team of Tax practitioners are registered with SARS under controlling body of the South African Institute of Tax Practitioners (SAIT). As tax specialists, we remove the burden from clients to keep their tax affairs in good order, achieving optimal tax savings while ensuring full compliance.

For more information on Tax Consulting please visit:
Website:  http://www.taxconsulting.co.za/
LinkedIn: Tax Consulting South Africa
Facebook:Tax Consulting South Africa

South Africans living or working abroad can no longer avoid the long arm of SARS. Under pressure to meet its revenue quotas, the tax authority has started auditing the country’s non-compliant expatriates in earnest.

“We have been warning expatriates that this was coming and now that it’s here, the time for hiding one’s head in the sand is over,” says Jonty Leon, Legal Manager (Expatriate Tax) at Tax Consulting SA.         

He advises those intending to relocate to another country to follow the formal exit procedures and, most importantly, ensure their tax affairs are in order beforehand. He also advises that those that have already left permanently, should ensure that they have done so in a compliant manner, and have had themselves noted as non-resident for tax purposes.

Gone, but not forgotten
Whether a South African must declare their worldwide income and pay tax on it to SARS is determined by their tax residency status, not their physical location or period outside the country. Leon states, “Tax residency of South Africa is not determined solely on the amount of time spent in the Republic, this is a far more complex issue which must be technically dealt with in terms of the law.”

The safest route to remove ambiguity on tax residency status is to follow the formal financial emigration process. This process is being changed and a new more stringent regime will be implemented from 1 March 2021.  

This may come as a shock to those who believe that, once they set foot on foreign soil, they are free from any further tax obligation to South Africa. More so for those who left the country without settling their tax debt, even if they have been gone for decades.

“With stricter legislation to back its efforts and an emerging system of global financial data sharing as wind in its sails, SARS is more than capable of detecting taxpayers who historically flew under its radar,” says Leon.

The warning signs
According to Leon, several warning signs arose over the past year.

The first was changes to the expatriate tax laws that came into effect on 1 March 2020, soon after SARS launched its dedicated Foreign Employment Unit, which is focused on South Africans working abroad.

The second warning was the announcement that the current financial emigration law would be amended, which in the past has been successful in confirming with SARS and SARB one’s non-resident status. The change will inherently make it more difficult to cease tax residency and with a new and, as yet, undisclosed replacement process on the horizon, there has been a massive influx of applications to beat the deadline. 

The third sign was the removal of the term “wilfully” from the Tax Administration Act when dealing with non-compliance, giving SARS greater leverage to prosecute anyone claiming negligence when failing to meet their tax obligations. This is in line with the reasoning for the change in the expatriate tax legislation previously, where the rife tax non-compliance of South Africans abroad was noted during Parliamentary sessions in August 2017.

Lastly, SARS has begun a two-pronged attack strategy:
-          Firstly, through audits calling for individual expatriates to prove they are non-residents and justify their intentions – some audits calling for proof that the taxpayer had obtained an Emigration Tax Clearance Certificate when leaving South Africa; and
-          Secondly, by audits on offshore income revealed through the common reporting standard (CRS). According to Leon, this comes as no surprise, as SARS is targeting those who have historically been able to “hide” assets and funds, but which will no longer be possible due to the exchange of information between jurisdictions.

Options
Leon says South African expatriates and those wishing to emigrate still have several options available to them.

For one, they can urgently apply for financial emigration until March 2021. “National Treasury confirmed that applications submitted prior to that date will be processed under current legislation,” he says.

They can also take advantage of any double tax agreement between their chosen country and South Africa. As the tax implications of such agreements vary between jurisdictions and the fact that these agreements do not apply automatically to the taxpayer, they should seek advice from an expatriate tax expert.

Above all, if an expatriate is not tax compliant, they can approach SARS under the Voluntary Disclosure Programme to pay their back taxes along with interest and penalties but without prosecution. This process must also be undertaken very carefully, as specific requirements must be met.

“SARS has the advantage now, so waiting to see what happens is a course of action I do not recommend,” says Leon.

ENDS

MEDIA CONTACT: Rosa-Mari Le Roux, 060 995 6277, rosa-mari@thatpoint.co.za, www.atthatpoint.co.za

ABOUT Tax Consulting SA:
Tax Consulting SA offers a streamlined service in the calculation and filing of individual income tax returns, provisional income tax returns or any other more complex individual tax relate matters. Our highly qualified team of Tax practitioners are registered with SARS under controlling body of the South African Institute of Tax Practitioners (SAIT). As tax specialists, we remove the burden from clients to keep their tax affairs in good order, achieving optimal tax savings while ensuring full compliance.

For more information on Tax Consulting please visit:
Website:  http://www.taxconsulting.co.za/
LinkedIn: Tax Consulting South Africa
Facebook:Tax Consulting South Africa

Authored by: Jonty Leon, Attorney & Legal Manager for Expatriate Tax Compliance at Tax Consulting SA

On 13 October 2020, National Treasury and SARS published their responses on the Draft Taxation Laws Amendment Bill (“TLAB”), which included potential relief for South African expatriates who were unable to leave South Africa owing to the Covid-19 lockdown.

This relief provided for reduced days in terms of the requirements of the foreign employment exemption, being section 10(1)(o)(ii) of the Income Tax Act, commonly known as the “expat exemption”.

As this was merely a response document, which needs approval by the Minister and Parliament, the relief has not yet been confirmed.

​It is commonly known that SA is in dire need of tax revenue, and this proposal thus came as a welcome surprise, with many anxious to see whether this would pass into law and provide much needed relief for expats.

One Step Closer
On 28 October 2020, an updated TLAB was released following the response document by Treasury and SARS, which included the proposed relief for expats.

As the proposals were contained in the TLAB, it takes a step in the right direction for the relief to be approved in Parliament and promulgated into law, which ordinarily would materialize in December, if prior years are anything to go by.

At this point, it would be out of the ordinary for the proposal to not be passed and thus this is positive news for South African expats who have been locked down in SA and unable to meet the standard days out of SA to claim the exemption.

One word of caution would be to not count one’s chickens before they have hatched – although moving in the right direction on this proposal, a flailing economy could give rise to an unexpected surprise.

The Relief 
The foreign employment exemption standard requirements are simply:
-          Income must emanate from foreign employment (independent contractors do not qualify);
-          The taxpayer must spend more than 183 days outside South Africa during a twelve-month period; and
-          More than 60 of those days must be continuous.
If these requirements are all met, R1.25mil of foreign earned income can be exempted from tax in South Africa – the portion above this, simply put, would remain taxable in SA in terms of the standard personal income tax rates.

The proposed relief reduces the total number of days required to be outside of SA by 66. Thus, the only change to the exemption requirements is that the taxpayer would need to be outside of SA for more than 117 days rather than 183 days.

Be Cautious – Approach SARS with Clean Hands
Many South African expats will breathe a sigh of relief, if this proposal is signed into law.

The issue arises though that many are of the opinion that if they meet the exemption requirements, they are automatically exempt from tax in SA.

This is incorrect – one must file a tax return to SARS, declaring their foreign income and claiming the exemption for that income from tax of up to R1.25mil.

Without doing this, the foreign income is theoretically not exempted from tax in SA, unless you have already formalised your non-tax residency using the Financial Emigration process or by applying Double Tax Treaty relief.

Furthermore, dealing with thousands of expatriate tax returns yearly, we note that in most cases taxpayers have been historically non-compliant, as they have not declared their foreign income.

This historic non-compliance must be fixed, especially where a taxpayer only now decides to declare income correctly, and preferably with a tax professional at your side to mitigate any tax exposures.

The crux of the matter is that SARS is under massive pressure to extract as much tax  revenue as possible from a dwindling tax base.

Non-compliant taxpayers make it easy for SARS not only to raise an assessment requiring tax to be paid, but also to levy penalties and interest on previous non-declaration.

ENDS

MEDIA CONTACT: Rosa-Mari Le Roux, 060 995 6277, rosa-mari@atthatpoint.co.za, www.atthatpoint.co.za

ABOUT Tax Consulting SA:
Tax Consulting SA offers a streamlined service in the calculation and filing of individual income tax returns, provisional income tax returns or any other more complex individual tax relate matters. Our highly qualified team of Tax practitioners are registered with SARS under controlling body of the South African Institute of Tax Practitioners (SAIT). As tax specialists, we remove the burden from clients to keep their tax affairs in good order, achieving optimal tax savings while ensuring full compliance.

For more information on Tax Consulting please visit:
Website:  http://www.taxconsulting.co.za/
LinkedIn: Tax Consulting South Africa
Facebook:Tax Consulting South Africa
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