Tag: Annual Financial Statements (AFS)

With the corporate tax collection deficit announced in September 2023, South African Revenue Service (SARS) is dead set on filling at least this fiscal pothole. How will they do this you may ask; well, amongst other avenues, SARS are exploiting the Tax Administration Act, which provides for instances in which the representative taxpayer, employer, or vendor, will be held personally liable for a company’s tax debt!

The impact of COVID-19 spanned many facets of the business world. The policies and controls that prevent an auditing firm from taking on the ‘wrong’ clients or kind of work fall under our Quality and Risk Management (QRM) function, and the pandemic was able to teach us many valuable lessons about compliance in this regard.

Several advantages make owning commercial or business property a viable prospect for small businesses. These include the benefit of asset appreciation, enjoying full control over interior design and renovations, security of tenure and avoiding above-inflation rent hikes.

In April 2012, the Accounting Standards Board approved the adoption of Generally Recognised Accounting Practice (GRAP) Standards to replace the Modified Cash Basis of Accounting (MCB) in the public sector. For over a decade, despite South African Revenue Service (SARS) noting its intention ‘to expedite the migration of SARS’ revenue accounting practices to [GRAP] to ensure legislative compliance’, there still has been no implementation. Or has there been?

In the current economic environment, there are various reasons why small and medium enterprises (SMEs) would require an audit of their annual financial statements. An audit could be required by law in terms of the Companies Act of South Africa, the company’s memorandum of incorporation, the bank during an application for funding, potential investors, or the regulators in the industry in which that SME operates (or any other legislation).

Filing of Financial Accountability Supplements instead of Audited Annual Financial Statements during the period 01 April 2020 to 31 March 2021. On 01 July 2018, we mandated Extensible Business Reporting Language, which is a digital financial reporting mechanism for companies to file audited annual financial statements (AFSs) in an electronic format.

One of the most contentious and eagerly awaited topics of 2021 is government’s vaccine roll-out plan to immunise South African citizens against COVID-19. Never in recent times has a microscopic germ had such a catastrophic impact on the world.

There are numerous other variations and forms of the above concept, but one clear common theme is that materiality represents a threshold, a gate-keeper and a clear reference to a quantum above which more discretion and judgement may be required.

Democratic Alliance Member of Parliament, Ghaleb Cachalia, who also serves as the party’s spokesman on public enterprises and serves on the Ethics Committee in Parliament, introduced the Public Finance Management Amendment Bill to the National Assembly.

Changes to the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) are aimed at avoiding another global financial crisis. This is in response to the backlash against IFRS 17 Insurance Contracts from critics in the insurance industry.