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BUSINESS | Compliance<br />
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provisionally and annually for<br />
income tax,<br />
monthly or bi-monthly for VAT,<br />
monthly, bi-annually and<br />
annually for employee tax,<br />
return on earnings annual<br />
returns for the Workmen's<br />
compensation fund,<br />
annual returns for CIPC<br />
yearly and bi-annual<br />
employment equity reports to<br />
the Department of labour,<br />
annual training reports to SETA<br />
for re-imbursements.<br />
All these, excluding VAT are<br />
annually assessed and require<br />
that you pay any shortfall should<br />
any arise during assessment. VAT<br />
requires you to provide proof of<br />
invoices on certain amounts<br />
claimed and that the records be<br />
kept should SARS ever wish to do<br />
a surprise audit. Complying with<br />
your tax matters enables you to<br />
easily obtain a tax clearance<br />
certicate when you need it, which<br />
is usually a requirement for due<br />
diligence.<br />
SARS even offers an option to<br />
register your company as a small<br />
business corporation or turn over<br />
tax for micro businesses to lesson<br />
your tax burden. Turnover tax for<br />
micro business is an option for<br />
those businesses with an annual<br />
turnover of R1m or less. It<br />
replaces the normal taxes and<br />
brings them under one basket.<br />
There are also tax benets if your<br />
organisation makes an annual<br />
gross income of R14m or less,<br />
SARS offers an option to register<br />
as a Small Business Corporation<br />
(SBC) which then qualies the<br />
organisation to receive tax<br />
benets aligned with SBCs. It<br />
would be wise to check if your<br />
organisation qualies for these<br />
benets. SBC benets don’t apply<br />
to a Sole Proprietary or<br />
Partnership by Turnover tax does<br />
which comes with its own benets.<br />
You are required to have a BEE<br />
certicate which identies the level<br />
your organization is within. All this<br />
helps the organization in applying<br />
for tenders or doing business with<br />
other companies. The BEE<br />
accrediting rms will do a<br />
verication process which will<br />
require you to supply them with<br />
any information they require.<br />
CIPC annual returns are to ensure<br />
that your business is in operation<br />
or active, if returns are not done<br />
CIPC will deregister your<br />
company.<br />
The 2008 global nancial crises<br />
raised a lot of ags and some<br />
conditions were put in place to<br />
avoid such risks in future.<br />
Companies are to have a risk<br />
management strategy in place<br />
especially if working with a lot of<br />
projects and/or handling third<br />
party nances. Generally, every<br />
company should have a risk<br />
management strategy in place to<br />
lower the impact any liability may<br />
have on the organisation due to<br />
risk incurred. Implement a<br />
delegation of authority to combat<br />
fraudulent and irregular activities,<br />
and generally comply with<br />
corporate governance policies.<br />
Though depending on your public<br />
interest score (PIS), you are<br />
required to keep a set of<br />
accounting records and prepare<br />
annual nancial statements.<br />
Accounting records are to be kept<br />
even if PIS is lower than 500 for<br />
proper nancial management.<br />
You are to perform a liquidity and<br />
solvency test before you make<br />
distributions.<br />
It is important to know and<br />
understand compliance matters<br />
that are aligned with your form of<br />
entity and the kind of<br />
complications non-compliance<br />
will rise. A lot of organizations<br />
nd themselves stuck with a huge<br />
tax bill if they do not manage<br />
their tax matters, and SARS can<br />
easily take them to the cleaners to<br />
recover that which is owed. The<br />
re-registration process costs<br />
money and time, and can cause<br />
you to lose business if your<br />
business is found to be inactive<br />
according to CIPC records. There<br />
are also liabilities that can be<br />
attached to either individuals or<br />
companies if rules and<br />
regulations are not followed as<br />
stipulated in legislations, and if<br />
there is no risk management<br />
strategy in place. This can be very<br />
costly to the organisation<br />
depending on the liability<br />
You can either hire a compliance<br />
ofcer to ensure all compliance<br />
functions are adhered to, or<br />
outsource the function. It is a vital<br />
function of your business. It needs<br />
to be assigned as a role in order<br />
to keep abreast to changing<br />
regulations and ensure<br />
compliance. It usually forms part<br />
of the responsibilities of a<br />
company secretary, nance<br />
manager or Accountant. A<br />
graduate in Business<br />
Management or Business<br />
Administration would be a perfect<br />
candidate.<br />
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