Tag: beneficial ownership

After years of threatening non-compliant trusts with penalties for late tax return submissions, South African Revenue Service's (SARS) leniency seems to be ending.

The Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC) has introduced new obligations for reporting beneficial ownership information. The deadlines are tied to each company’s date of inception. Businesses must declare their beneficial owners within 30 days of their anniversary date, similar to annual return filings.

With 2024 being the first year that trust taxpayers are tasked with submitting third party IT3(t) returns to South African Revenue Service (SARS) by 30 September 2024, this change of the filing season could potentially offer a silver lining for trust taxpayers, granting them additional time to prepare for their 2024 tax return filing along with the added compliance measures that come with the submission.

On 27 June 2024, the South African Revenue Service (SARS) announced its enhanced Beneficial Ownership disclosures for the 2024 Filing Season. Not even 24 hours later, the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC) issued a media release enforcing beneficial ownership (OB) declaration, to be able to file annual returns. This may simply be a compliance coincidence, but more likely a strategic move to eradicate non-compliance for companies, trusts, and partnerships, on all levels.

Gone are the days of box-ticking. The Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) has recently imposed administrative sanctions on two financial services providers (FSPs), in each case for failing to comply with certain provisions of the Financial Intelligence Centre Act (FICA). 

On 31 July 2023, National Treasury released their annual draft tax law amendments, for public comment. Although still at the draft stage, there are some pertinent proposed changes for which the supporting systems have already been implemented i.e., the “Beneficial Ownership Registers”.

On 1 April 2023, the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC) released its new “beneficial ownership register” functionality on its e-services platform. This new requirement has placed companies under the spotlight as they must now declare their beneficial ownership to the CIPC. This means the days when the “warm body” which sits behind a company can no longer remain off record.

The popularity of cryptocurrencies stems from the fact that trading takes place in an anonymous environment where individuals may use pseudonyms and are not face-to-face. However, as the crypto industry grows and becomes more developed, it is becoming less true that “crypto is anonymous”.

If you hold “beneficial ownership” in relation to a company, you should already be aware of the new “beneficial ownership register” functionality now on the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC)’s e-services platform.

The Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC) is pleased to announce that it is planning to establish and implement a beneficial ownership (BO) register to be released upon approval of the regulations, pursuant to the commencement of the General Laws Amendment Act, 2022, that was signed into law by the President of the Republic of South Africa on 29 December 2022.