Questions over relief

BLADE NZIMANDE: MINISTER APPEARS TO BE SINGING FROM OWN HYMN SHEET

Virtual meetings are seemingly leading to worrying challenges to legislation.

of commenting on tax proposals, Minister of Higher Education, Science and Technology Blade Nzimande on 4 June issued a discussion document, turning the four-month SDL special Covid-19 tax holiday into a deferral.

When government proposed the Covid-19 tax relief measures, the proposals were dealt with by the ministry of finance in accordance with the normal processes involved in introducing tax amendments: that of publishing the proposals in a bill for comment.

On 29 March, the department issued a statement detailing the first round of relief measures, and announced that: “Together with the Commissioner of Sars [South African Revenue Service], National Treasury will also be considering additional exceptional adjustments to assist with Covid-19 relief efforts and to the tax treatment of newly-formed funds in this regard.” The measures were given legal effect in terms of two Bills: the Disaster Management Tax Relief Bill and the Disaster Management Tax Relief Administration Bill.

The Bills were updated as new relief measures were added.

Sars has made the necessary adjustments in regard to the relief measures to its eFiling system. On 26 May, Nzimande held a virtual meeting with “the social partners, organised labour and organised business” to discuss tax relief measures.

The SDL Act is administered by Nzimande’s department.

No details are provided in regard to the social partners, organised labour and organised business.

The meeting led to a discussion document published on 3 June. The discussion document refers to the Treasury’s projected revenue loss on the implementation of the SDL holiday to be R6 billion.

The department decrees that “companies must continue with the payment of the SDL, including for the month of May, with the exception of those companies which can prove to be negatively affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.”

The discussion document further announces that the SDL payment holiday is a deferral and that companies that apply for it will be required to “submit a plan on how to repay back [sic] the money in equal instalments within the financial year 2020-21”.

It is of great concern that despite the tax relief regulations having been announced by the president and the minister of finance, and included in the tax relief and tax administration Bills for public comment, Nzimande is having high-level meetings with unelected persons, and seemingly issuing changes to legislation.

Treasury will also be considering additional exceptional adjustments