Written by Nicci
Updated 14 June 2025
As a Director of a Company, your salary is subject to monthly PAYE and UIF deductions. Many small business owners don’t realise that if they operate their business through a company (Pty), the company needs to be registered as an employer with SARS.
This means, the company needs to deduct employee’s tax (PAYE) from the amounts paid to Directors. It’s also required to make monthly EMP201 submissions (this is the PAYE, UIF and SDL return) to SARS. The same applies even in the case of “owner managed” businesses -where there’s only one director and no employees...
Written by Vee
Updated 21 November 2024
Getting a new business venture off the ground is an equally exciting and stressful time. You’re enthusiastic about getting your new product or service out into the market, but you face quite an administrative process to get it off the ground legally.
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Written by Alicia
Updated 28 May 2024
In previous years, it was relatively easy to add a company to your eFiling profile, whether it was an Organization or Tax Practitioner profile.
However, since early last year, SARS has changed the procedure. Now, to add a company to your profile, you need to add a registered representative. In order to do this, you must send a request to SARS along with the following documents each time you want to represent a new company:
Written by Nicci
Updated 16 May 2024
What is the definition of tax threshold? Tax thresholds? SARS Threshold.
A Tax threshold is the lower limit of earnings at which tax needs to start being paid. So any income less than the current threshold, would not be taxed.
What is Turnover Tax?
Turnover Tax is a streamlined taxation system designed to simplify tax compliance for small businesses. It replaces several types of taxes—Income Tax, VAT, Provisional Tax, Capital Gains Tax, and Dividends Tax—with a single tax based on turnover...
Written by Vee
Updated 16 May 2024
Turnover Tax is a simplified tax system only available to sole proprietors, partnerships, companies, or close corporations with a “qualifying turnover” of less than R1m per year. These types of entities are called micro businesses.
As the name implies, Turnover Tax is a type of tax, which is calculated against the turnover of a business, as opposed to a percentage of profit (i.e. income less business expenses) as per usual business tax. This difference reduces the administ...
Written by Vee
Updated 19 March 2024
When pursuing a business activity, trade or renting out a property, you’re no doubt doing so to make some money, but the reality for self-starters
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Written by Patrick
Updated 7 March 2024
As part of SARS’ mission to simplify the eFiling system, the Tax Type Transfer process was updated in 2020 for all Tax products in a bid to offer users complete control of their eFiling profiles.
What's new on eFiling?Overall, you can expect to see the following key changes introduced to eFiling from the end of April 2021:
Written by Alicia
Updated 21 November 2023
The CIPC recently (1 April 2023) implemented a new register called the Beneficial Ownership (BO) register in an attempt to establish who owns or exercise control over which companies.
In layman’s terms, BO in respect of a company means, an individual who, directly or indirectly, ultimately owns that company or exercises effective control over that company for tax or financial purposes.
This new register is to assist law enforcement with relevant information when it comes...
Written by Alicia
Posted 4 October 2023
The updated ITR14 on eFiling has some new sections, and one that often raises questions is the part about share classes. Although it might seem confusing, it's actually quite simple. SARS is just asking you to tell them more about your shareholders in the company.
When you begin your ITR14, please have the balance sheet, income statement, and also the share register ready. A share register is is a list of all active and former owners of a company's shares. To complete the capita...
Written by Alicia
Updated 11 August 2023
It seems that dormant companies are on SARS' radar.
If you registered a company with CIPC some time ago and forgot about it, that company could land you in hot water with SARS. Read more to find out what the financial repercussions could be and why you should get a hold on the situation.
What is a dormant company?A dormant company is classified as a company that has not actively traded for the full year of assessment. Because there is no activity in the compan...
Written by Alicia
Posted 26 April 2023
Are you confused about whether your company should file a dormant return or a normal ITR14 for companies? It's understandable - dormancy can be a tricky concept to navigate. It's important to understand that the type of tax return you need to file depends on when your company became dormant. But don't worry, we're here to help you figure it out!
First things first, what is a dormant company?
A dormant company is a company which is registered with the ...
Written by Nicci
Updated 27 June 2022
Too often, taxpayers rush when completing their tax return, and then they miss out on some expenses they are eligible to claim. Don’t overpay tax by overlooking these seven common tax breaks.
Contributions towards a Retirement Annuity
Your contributions towards retirement funds are deductible for tax up to a limit of 27,5% of the greater of your taxable income or remuneration (to a maximum of R350,000 per year). This limit applies to the total contributions you make to any Pension, Provident or Retirement Annuity (RA) fund during the year...
Written by Elani
Posted 30 May 2022
There are various types of taxes with their own special return forms and deadlines.
Quick Summary
Written by Nicci
Posted 15 April 2020
Recently we have noticed emails that appear to have been sent from SARS, and that might look like legitimate SARS correspondence, but are not.
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Written by Nicci
Posted 1 April 2020
The national lockdown due to the Covid-19 virus is undoubtedly wreaking havoc on the economy. Small businesses have been hard hit – many not knowing if they will have sufficient cash flow to resume operations when things eventually return to normal.
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Written by Nicci
Posted 23 March 2020
Quarantine. Self-isolation. Coronavirus. These are the buzzwords for 2020, and once it is all over, words we’ll probably never want to hear again. In light of Covid-19, TaxTim offers the safest way to handle your taxes - online.
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Written by Nicci
Posted 27 February 2020
The Minister delivered some good news to South Africans yesterday when he announced there would be no significant tax hikes
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Written by Nicci
Posted 17 April 2019
From our numerous interactions with small business owners, it seems that many draw up the company’s financial statements by themselves, without engaging the services of a professional. Many don’t use accounting software but opt for a simple excel spreadsheet instead. Although this is cost-effective, it can be a daunting task, particularly for those with a sketchy (or non-existent) accounting background.
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Written by Nicci
Posted 5 February 2018
If you have reached the age of 55 years, and are thinking of selling your small business, read on to find out more about the special capital gains exclusion of R1,800,000 which may apply to you.
Before getting into the detail, let’s first highlight the three different scenarios where this exclusion may apply:
1. You are selling your business, which you operate as a sole proprietor.
2. You are selling your share of a business, which you run through a partnership....
Written by Nicci
Posted 20 April 2017
With the launch of the Corporate Income Tax Return service for SME’s recently, there are questions around the requirement for companies to produce financial statements once they have filed their return. In particular, small business owners have been asking whether they need to engage an expensive professional to prepare them, or if can they be drafted and signed internally by their accountant/bookkeeper. There also seems to exist some confusion around the requirement for an audit versus an internal review. Below, we try and clear up some of the confusion around this topic. ...
Written by Vee
Posted 18 October 2016
You’re an entrepreneur. A wildly innovative individual. An ideas person. A make-things-happen person. A real go-getter. Passionate about your business and pursuing your dreams. And brilliant at keeping your accounting records up to date. Chances are that last one doesn’t ring true, does it? Don’t feel alone, financial record-keeping is the bane of existence for most small business owners and managers.
When you’re in the throes of building your empire from the gr...
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