With South Africa now officially out of the recession, we can celebrate the festive season and look forward to a prosperous 2010.

The Institute will be closed from 21 December – 4 January 2010. This will be our final newsletter for 2009, with the next issue being published on 5 January 2010.

The Secretariat and Board of the Institute would like to thank all our members and stakeholders for their continuous support throughout this past year. We would like to wish you and your families a happy Festive Season and a prosperous New Year.

Yours truly,
Stiaan Klue and Secretariat

The current amendments to the Income Tax Act promulgated in September see the conclusion of the process begun in 2007 of simplifying the taxation of funds withdrawn from retirement funds, whether by resignation, retrenchment or retirement. Earlier amendments had provided certainty as to the treatment of these funds where a marriage terminates and one spouse is a member of a fund. These were followed by changes discussed in this article.

In appropriate circumstances an employer and an employee could make an arrangement that could be tax advantageous to the employee. It would seem that this tax-saving opportunity is often overlooked. In terms of section 10(1)(nB) of the Income Tax Act (the Act), a benefit that an employee may have enjoyed by reason of the fact that his employer has borne certain expenditure incurred ...

The chief executive, Stiaan Klue, was cited in Personal Finance (Saturday Star) on 5 December 2009 in respect of the draft Tax Administration Bill.

National Treasury held a workshop on 1 December 2009 on annexure C proposals with industry stakeholders. SAIT was represented at this forum by Professor Jackie Arendse, chair of the SAIT National Tax Technical Committee.

This ruling deals with the question as to whether a foreign citizen, who accepts employment in South Africa with a South African company for a period of two years, renewable annually thereafter, and who is required to relocate to South Africa with his family, will be regarded as ordinarily resident in South Africa for South African income tax purposes.

This ruling deals with the question as to whether interest incurred on shareholders loans and on bank funded loans obtained with the intention to acquire the businesses of a group of companies as going concerns will be deductible for income tax purposes.

This ruling deals with the question as to whether the distribution of dividend income received by a trust to its income beneficiaries will retain its nature in the hands of the income beneficiary having regard for the timing of the distribution and the fact that the distribution is made by virtue of the income beneficiaries’ employment within a group of companies responsible for establishing the trust.

SARS is in the process of issuing documentation in respect of which documents and / or forms must be submitted by conveyancers to SARS' offices when application is made for a transfer duty exemption in terms of section 9(20) of the Transfer Duty Act, 1949, read together with paragraphs 51(1) and (2) of the Income Tax Act, 1962, where a primary residence is being transferred from a company or trust to a natural person. The following information is crucial and must be used in the interim until the documentation is simultaneously issued by SARS and the Law Society.

With effect from 7 December 2009, SARS will no longer accept current Notice of Objection forms for Personal Income Tax objections. Existing Alternate Dispute Resolution (ADR) forms will also be made redundant for Personal Income Tax objections.