Mid-Year Budget Review

1
min read
Mid-Year Budget Review

Newsflash courtesy of SAPA
The Minister of Finance, Pravin Gordhan, presented his mid-year budget review on Wednesday 26th October. Proposed changes that immediately impact payroll include the extension of the Employment Tax Incentive. This was to have ended on 31st December 2016, and it is proposed that this date has been extended for another 2 years to end February 2019, which means that organisations are encouraged to recruit and employ people between the ages of 18 to 30, to introduce them to the work environment.

It is clear, from the speech, that personal taxes are likely to increase in the new 2018 tax year, i.e. March 2017.

News from SA Revenue Service

e@syFile – this page has been updated with release notes for the updated version from September 2016, as well as changes required for February 2017. The page also has tips, tricks and FAQ’s.

Double Taxation agreement with Republic of Chile – Gazette 40262 was published early in September, and applies to people who are resident of either one or both our countries.

Learnerships

The recent proposed amendments to the Taxation Laws Amendment Bill suggests that the incentive for business to invest in training employees be extended for another 5 years to the end of March 2022. It appears that the claimable amounts will be increased up to R40 000 for up to NQF 6 (for example, this would cover the cost of the 1st 2 years of the BCom degree in Payroll), and to R20 000 for NQF7 and above (i.e. the 3rd year).