The taxing of capital gain

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Section 9HA of the Income Tax Act deals with deemed disposals by a deceased person. This section of the Act often causes some confusion, especially where there are heirs or legatees other than the surviving spouse. In terms of the provision, a deceased person is treated as having disposed of his or her assets at the date of death, for an amount received or accrued equal to the market value of those assets as at the date of death.This deeming provision does not apply to the following circumstances:

  • Assets of, or for the benefit of the deceased’s surviving spouse.
  • An interest in a resident pension, pension preservation, provident, provident preservation or retirement annuity fund; or a fund, arrangement or instrument outside of South Africa, which provides similar benefits to that in South Africa.
  • In respect of some long-term insurance policies of the deceased.

The position is, however, different if the surviving spouse of the deceased acquires the assets. In this instance, the deceased is deemed to have disposed of the assets at base cost on the date of the deceased’s death. The surviving spouse essentially steps into the deceased’s position.

In the situation where assets are acquired by heirs or legatee’s, assets acquired are treated as though they were disposed of on the day immediately before the deceased’s death, at the market value of those assets. In this instance, any capital gains are to be included in the deceased’s final tax return covering taxes up to date of death.

The consequence is that, if an heir or legatee acquires assets in this manner, the base cost for them is the market value of the assets on the date of death of the deceased.

The practicalities of death are that there are essentially three different taxpayers involved:

  • The deceased person is to file a return covering taxes up until the date of death.
  • Thereafter, the deceased estate is regarded as a “person” for purposes of tax and is required to file a tax return for income earned after death, for each year that the estate is active.
  • Then finally, any heir or legatee is the ultimate beneficial owner of the assets and acquires the assets, and these then form part of such heir or legatee’s estate from the date of distribution to said person.

Executors of estates should, therefore, exercise caution when dealing with the capital gains tax consequences of a person’s death, as the type of heir or legatee could determine the treatment.

This article is a general information sheet and should not be used or relied on as legal or other professional advice. No liability can be accepted for any errors or omissions nor for any loss or damage arising from reliance upon any information herein. Always contact your financial adviser for specific and detailed advice. Errors and omissions excepted (E&OE)

Are my donations being taxed?

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BPR 338 deals with the tax treatment of payments made to a Public Benefit Organisation (PBO) at a fundraising event, under section 30 of the Income Tax Act. The ruling is essentially an interpretation of section 18A of the Act and seeks to clarify the situation for PBOs and funders.

In terms of the transaction, the Applicant (a resident company registered as a PBO) will host an event for the explicit purpose of fundraising, but this event will be managed by a third-party events management company.

As is commonplace, persons attending the events will make payments to participate in activities taking place at the event, as well as make donations. The events management company manages an electronic system that will enable funders and donors to make payments at the event. This system is accessible through various roaming electronic touchscreen devices, developed for the distinct purpose of distinguishing between donations and payments for activities.

By the end of the evening, each attendee is required to settle their required payments in respect of the relevant transactions they entered into, with one single card payment. The system then determines which attendee is entitled to a section 18A certificate, as well as the amount to be reflected on the receipt. Only donations made by attendees are reflected on the section 18A receipt.

One condition and assumption of this ruling is that the payment tracking system must, as closely as practicable, conform to the one proposed and its intended function, accounting for the donations of money separately from payments, must be easily verifiable.

The ruling made by SARS is that donations made and identified as such by the applicant’s payment tracking system at the fundraising event will constitute bona fide donations made to a PBO under section 18A of the Act, and as such, the applicant may issue the donors with section 18A receipts in respect thereof.

This article is a general information sheet and should not be used or relied on as legal or other professional advice. No liability can be accepted for any errors or omissions nor for any loss or damage arising from reliance upon any information herein. Always contact your financial adviser for specific and detailed advice. Errors and omissions excepted (E&OE)

Section 7C of The Income Tax Act

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What is section 7C?
This section of the Income Tax Act is an anti-avoidance measure aimed at transactions between connected persons and trusts, where a trust is funded by low interest or interest-free loans. This is usually done to ensure that assets form part of the trust’s capital, and the funder (who is usually a trustee or founder of the trust) allows for the transfer of ownership of the assets, and the creation of a loan account in said person’s favour.

The sections allow for any loan, advance or credit by a connected person, directly or indirectly to a trust, and this loan, advance or credit incurs no interest, on the loan, advance or credit, or incurs interest at a rate lower than the official rate, an amount equal to the difference between the amount of interest incurred, and the amount it would have incurred had an acceptable interest rate (official rate) been used, will be deemed as a donation in the hands of the lender. For purposes of this section, the same principle applies where a company who is owned by trust loans on terms that are not regarded as commercial or market-related and no interest is charged.

What is the reasoning behind section 7C?
Trusts have traditionally been a very popular estate planning tool. In the past, the practice was to sell growth assets to a trust and to then extend an interest-free loan to the trust for that sale price. That would mean that the estate of the seller would be pegged at that value because the loan would not increase in value as time goes by while the assets would grow in the trust. Section 7C seeks to address this practice, as it is argued such a transaction should be seen as having no commercial sense, as only the trust benefits. The seller earns no interest on the loan and hence derives no value or benefit.

How does section 7C work?
Section 7C deems the interest that is not levied or charged on an interest-free loan, as a deemed donation on the last day of each tax year for a loan that was outstanding for any period during that preceding tax year.

The interest forgone is calculated by using the official interest rate in the 7th Schedule to the Income Tax Act, currently being 7.25%. This would be regarded as a deemed donation on the last day of the tax year and as a consequence donations tax would be levied on that donation.

Where there is a low interest-bearing agreement, the difference of the official interest rate and the lower interest rate will determine the deemed donation.

Trusts and loan accounts

Should I be charging interest on a loan, advance or credit to a Trust?

Making section 7C practical will require the use of a few examples to illustrate its effect.

Example 1

A loan in the amount of R10 million is advanced by an individual to a trust with no interest charged by the lender. The individual will choose to apply his annual donations tax exemption of R100,000.00 to the deemed donation.

The deemed donation will be R725,000 (R10 million x 7.25%). The individual then applies his annual exemption of R100,000.

The donations tax liability will be calculated as follows: R625,000 x 20% = R125,000 which the individual will be required to pay.

Example 2

A loan in the amount of R10 million is advanced by an individual to a trust with an annual interest charge of 5% by the lender. For this example, we will ignore the lenders annual donations tax exemption.

The deemed donation will be calculated as follows: R10 million less x 2.25% (the difference between interest levied and the official rate or 7.25% – 5%). The deemed donation will be R225,000.

The actual donations tax liability is then R225,000 x 20% = R55,000. The lender may now apply his annual R100,000 donations tax exemption.

It is clear that the non-charging of interest, or charging at a lower rate, may result in an increase in personal tax liability for the lender.

This article is a general information sheet and should not be used or relied on as legal or other professional advice. No liability can be accepted for any errors or omissions nor for any loss or damage arising from reliance upon any information herein. Always contact your financial adviser for specific and detailed advice. Errors and omissions excepted (E&OE)

Valuation of trading stock for tax purposes

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On 27 September 2019, just over a year since delivering judgement in another matter with very similar facts, the Supreme Court of Appeal in CSARS v Atlas Copco South Africa (Pty) Ltd (834/2018) [2019] ZASCA 124 gave a judgement on the valuation of trading stock for income tax purposes.

The general (and oversimplified) principle is that taxpayers are allowed, as a deduction, the value of opening trading stock during a year of assessment, while the value of the closing trading stock is required to be included in taxable income. From a tax perspective, the higher the value attributed to closing stock at the end of a tax year, the lower the cost of sales for that year will be and the greater the taxable income of the taxpayer. Conversely, the lower the value attributed to closing stock, the higher the cost of sales and the lower the taxable income for that year. The value of the trading stock is generally the cost thereof, less an amount which SARS may think is just and reasonable as representing a diminishing in that value due to damage, deterioration, change of fashion, decrease in the market value or for any other reason.

Taxpayers often use accounting (or IFRS) values for the determination of stock values. These valuation methods usually involve a time-based approach. I.e. a write-down of stock if it has not been sold for several months. The more the number of months since the stock was last sold, the higher the write down. This approach is often based on internal policies. The court notes (in the previous judgement) that:

“If taxpayers had a free hand in determining the value of trading stock at year-end it would open the way for them to obtain a timing advantage in regard to the payment of tax, by adjusting the value of closing stock downwards. They could by adjusting these values manipulate their overall liability for tax in the light of their anticipations in regard to future rates of tax, future trading results, the need to incur significant expenses in the future and the like.”

The Court finds that IFRS values, based on “net realisable value” are explicitly forward-looking and that using this value for tax purposes, has the effect that expenses incurred in a future tax year in the production of income accruing to or received by the taxpayer in that future tax year, become deductible in a prior year. Whether IFRS values was a sensible and business-like manner of valuing trading stock from an accounting perspective was neither here nor there for tax purposes. The concern was whether it accurately reflected the diminution in value of trading stock. For income tax purposes, the exercise is thus one of looking back at what happened during the tax year in question.

SARS may only grant a just and reasonable allowance in respect of a diminution in value of trading stock in two circumstances. The first is where some event has occurred in the tax year in question causing the value of the trading stock to diminish. The second is where it is known with reasonable certainty that an event will occur in the following tax year that will cause the value of the trading stock to diminish.

It may, therefore, be necessary that taxpayers keep to sets of trading stock valuations: one for accounting purposes and one for tax purposes.

Although often only a timing issue between opening stock (for which a deduction is allowed) and closing stock (which is taxable), it could happen that the assessment in respect of the year during which the deduction applies, may have prescribed by the time the dispute relating to the closing stock matter has been finalised. In such an instance, any difference becomes permanent, and not merely a timing difference. It is therefore advisable that any disputes relating to trading stock be dealt with by taxpayers as a matter of urgency.

This article is a general information sheet and should not be used or relied on as legal or other professional advice. No liability can be accepted for any errors or omissions nor for any loss or damage arising from reliance upon any information herein. Always contact your financial adviser for specific and detailed advice. Errors and omissions excepted (E&OE)

The different VAT supplies

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There are a few instances where VAT is not charged at the standard rate of 15%. In the following newsletter, we distinguished between the different supplies that attract VAT but does not necessarily have the impact of a standard rate supply.

  1. Denied Supplies

    The VAT Act provides for certain expenses where input VAT is denied, even if the expense is incurred in the course of conducting an enterprise and if there are no input VAT consequences there will ultimately be no output VAT consequences. The following circumstances are common instances where input VAT will be denied:


    • Acquisitions of a motor vehicle:

      When a motor vehicle is purchased by a vendor, who is not a motor car dealer or car rental enterprise, the input VAT on the purchase will be considered a denied supply.

      The definition of “motor vehicle” includes all vehicles designed primarily for the purposes of carrying passengers. This definition covers ordinary sedans, hatchbacks, multi-purpose vehicles and double cab bakkies. A single cab bakkie or a bus designed to carry more than 16 persons will qualify for input VAT purposes.  Any repairs and maintenance to vehicles, irrespective of the type of vehicle, will also qualify for the claiming of input VAT, as long as the cost is separately identified and invoiced.

    • Fees and Club Subscriptions:

      Input tax in terms of subscriptions/membership fees to sport, social, recreational and private clubs are denied supplies. Input VAT may, however, be deducted on subscriptions to magazines and trade journals which are related in a direct manner to the nature of the enterprise carried on by the vendor.

      However, fees for membership of professional bodies and trade organisations paid on behalf of employees are not denied supplies and SARS allows an input VAT to be claimed. Trade unions are exempt in this regard.

    In the case of denied supplies, no VAT may be claimed, and no output VAT needs to be declared, thus these supplies don’t need to be declared on your VAT return.

  2. Zero-Rated Supplies

    A zero-rated supply is a taxable supply, but VAT is levied at 0%. Vendors who make zero-rated supplies are still able to deduct input tax on goods or services acquired in making of the zero-rated supplies.

    Zero-rated supplies include certain basic foodstuffs such as brown bread and maize meal, certain services supplied to non-residents, international transport services, municipal property rates and more.

    Although a zero-rate supply is levied at 0%, it is still a taxable supply and should be declared separately on the VAT return.

  3. Deemed Supplies

    A vendor may be required to declare an amount of output tax even though they have not actually supplied any goods or services. Deemed supplies will generally attract VAT at either standard rate or zero rate.

    Two common examples of deemed supplies at standard rate are trading stock taken out of the business for private use and certain fringe benefits received provided to employees.

    The deemed supply will be declared on the VAT return under either your standard rate or zero-rate codes.


  4. Notional input VAT

    A VAT vendor may in certain circumstances deduct a notional input VAT credit in respect of secondhand goods acquired from non-vendors where no VAT is actually payable to the supplier.  Second-hand goods exclude animals, certain mineral rights and goods containing gold or consisting solely of gold.

    The following requirements must all be met for a notional input credit to be deductible in respect of secondhand goods:

    • Goods must be previously owned and used (as per the second-hand good definition in section 1 of the Act) and
    • Goods must be used to generate taxable supplies and
    • The seller must be a resident non-vendor and
    • Goods must be located in South Africa and
    • There must be no actual VAT levied on the transaction.

    It is important to keep all the documentation for all types of supplies for VAT purposes and to have it available as SARS may require it to confirm VAT transactions.

This article is a general information sheet and should not be used or relied on as legal or other professional advice. No liability can be accepted for any errors or omissions nor for any loss or damage arising from reliance upon any information herein. Always contact your financial adviser for specific and detailed advice. Errors and omissions excepted (E&OE)
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