Tag: Webber Wentzel

The South African Competition Commission has established a reputation for relentlessly pursuing its cartel enforcement objectives. Over the past three years, the Commission has raided over 70 companies and conducted hundreds of cartel investigations. It is imperative for businesses to ensure that they are prepared for a dawn raid.

National Treasury's proposal in the draft 2018 Taxation Laws Amendment Bill (2018 draft TLAB) to remove the taxable benefit concerning low or interest free loans granted to low-income employees for low-cost housing (the Proposed Amendment) was discussed on Day 2 of the recent National Treasury Workshop on the 2018 draft TLAB (Tax Workshop).

Cyber risks are evolving on a near daily basis posing countless threats to companies, and accordingly, directors need to stay abreast of legal developments to protect themselves and their companies in their fiduciary duties.

There have been a number of binding private rulings providing for the deductibility of contributions made by employer companies to share incentive trusts for the purpose of acquiring shares in the former.

It is no secret that tax systems around the world are struggling to keep pace with the digitisation of commerce and South Africa too, after an initially pro-active stance towards taxing e-commerce, was arguably starting to fall behind in this 'new frontier for VAT'.

In the recent case of CSARS v Char Trade, the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) that prescription begins to run against CSARS when a return for secondary tax on companies (STC) is submitted to SARS by a taxpayer.

The sharing economy (i.e. the community based on-line market) continues to expand at a rapid pace throughout a broad range of industries with Uber and Taxify dominating the taxi/ private vehicle hiring industry and Airbnb now the largest hotel accommodation and hospitality service in the world.

SARS replaced the Tax Clearance Certificate (TCC) system with the enhanced Tax Compliance Status (TCS) system on eFiling in April 2016. The new TCS system is aimed at improving tax compliance as taxpayers can better manage their TCS and remedy any non-compliance through the 'My Compliance Profile' (MCP) function on eFiling.

Section 1 of the Income Tax Act (ITA) defines a 'dividend' to be any amount transferred by a resident company for the benefit of any person in respect of any share in that company whether by way of a distribution or consideration for a share repurchase, but does not exclude a reduction of contributed tax capital of the company.

The obligation of SARS to collect tax and taxpayers' rights are often at odds with each other. To address this issue, the Budget 2018 proposes to reconcile taxpayers' constitutional rights with SARS' constitutional obligations by including a provision in the Tax Administration Act stipulating that SARS must inform the taxpayer at commencement of the audit when the information will be audited.