Moonstone

2 weeks ago | moonstone.co.za | Amanda Visser

National Treasury and the South African Revenue Service are ready for a value-added tax increase of half-a-percentage point in May and another half-a-percentage point in April next year. Treasury held a workshop on Friday where it appears that the rate and tax increases announced in the second round of Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana’s Budget Speech will go ahead.

3 weeks ago | moonstone.co.za

1 month ago | moonstone.co.za | Amanda Visser

The contentious nature of the phrase “bona fide inadvertent error” received some attention in the 2025 Budget Review. The courts have recently interpreted the phrase somewhat differently to what the South African Revenue Service (SARS) has in mind. The bona fide inadvertent error provision was inserted into the Tax Administration Act (TAA) to provide taxpayers with an exclusion from an understatement penalty (USP) when they make an error without the deliberate intention to defraud the fiscus.

1 month ago | moonstone.co.za | Marecia Damons

The High Court in Pretoria has granted the Department of Social Development (DSD), the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA), and National Treasury leave to appeal against the January judgment on the Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grant regulations. In October 2024, the #PayTheGrants campaign and the Institute for Economic Justice (IEJ) challenged the government’s SRD grant regulations, arguing that these rules exclude millions of potentially eligible people.

1 month ago | moonstone.co.za | Amanda Visser

It is prudent to assume that the proposed value-added tax (VAT) increase of one percentage point over two years will be passed by Parliament, says Gerhard Badenhorst, director in Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr’s tax and exchange control practice. Businesses will have to review their accounting, point-of-sale, and billing systems, as well as the reports they generate from their systems to complete their VAT returns.