Curbing ETI Abuse – Relaxation of Confidentiality
In the footer of PAGSA Newsflashes, it states that the newsflashes are firstly copyrighted in favour of the PAGSA, and secondly are confidential to PAGSA members and the statutory bodies that the PAGSA partner with. These bodies include, but are not limited to, the Employment Equity Directorate, the Unemployment Insurance Fund, the Compensation Fund, and SARS. This was done for good reason many years ago. Besides proposing changes to the law and commenting on the draft amendments to the law as they unfold, one of the PAGSA’s primary functions is to communicate to PAGSA members any changes to payroll-related legislation or regulations that require returns to be made or taxes to be withheld, as well as interpretations and opinions on the law by the statutory bodies, and the administration requirements that payrolls must comply with. New or changed requirements are issued in PAGSA Newsflashes as soon as the information is finalised. Due to the complexity of the changes to the Employment Tax Incentive Act that seek to curb the abuse of ETI that were published in PAGSA Newsflash 2022-15, and after requests received from some PAGSA members, we have decided to relax the confidentiality requirement for this newsflash only. This means that you can issue PAGSA Newsflash 2022-15 directly to your clients should you so wish, resulting in a consistent message being issued to employers. It will also reduce any inadvertent errors that might creep in when rewording what was a difficult newsflash to write. However we ask that should you do so, that you firstly acknowledge the PAGSA as the author of the document, and secondly that you request your clients to not distribute the information beyond their business. If your clients have queries on the new ETI requirements (as they undoubtedly will) the normal process must be followed whereby the client first contacts you, and if you can’t resolve the query, then the query can be raised with the PAGSA. In other words, your clients should not contact the PAGSA directly. Lastly, I will not be surprised if unexpected problems that nobody could foresee in the short time available will arise as we move forward with this complex legislation. If they do, we will communicate with you by Newsflash. Regards,
Rob Cooper
Chairman Payroll Authors Group of South Africa
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