The following is a news flash 2023/42 published by the PAGSA on November 22, 2023 regarding the RECONSIDERATION OF THE POSTPONEMENT OF THE EFFECTIVE DATE OF THE TWO-POT RETIREMENT

RECONSIDERATION OF THE POSTPONEMENT OF THE EFFECTIVE DATE OF THE TWO-POT RETIREMENT
SYSTEM
PAGSA Newsflash 2023-40 reported the proposal to postpone the effective date of the Two-pot Retirement System from 1 March 2024 to 1 March 2025. The postponement was requested by the retirement fund industry to give them more time to make the necessary changes to their systems, to train their staff, and to educate the fund members.

The financial press reported today (21 November 2023) that: “Parliament’s finance committee has gone against the advice of the National Treasury and the retirement industry in deciding the two-pot retirement system will be implemented March 1 2024.”

It seldom happens that the Finance Committee makes such a decision. My understanding is that the Minister of Finance must now decide whether to postpone the effective date or leave it as it is.

If the Minister does decide to revert to an effective date of 1 March 2024 (which I personally feel is unlikely and would put undue pressure on the retirement funds), the next question will be whether SARS will then reverse their decision to postpone the SARS Vision 2024 monthly tax certificate project from 1 March 2025 to 1 March 2026 as this postponement was made subsequent to the recent postponement of the Two-pot Retirement System to 1 March 2025.

Refer to PAGSA Newsflash 2023-41 for more details.

PAGSA Newsflashes are normally only issued when there is finality, but because of the financial press report today, in this case we felt it better to explain the situation and make PAGSA members aware of the fact that it is possible that:
1. The Two-pot Retirement System is made effective from 1 March 2024 as originally proposed in the draft Revenue Laws Amendment Bill of June 2023
2. If this happens, SARS might then decide to revert the SARS Vision 2024 monthly tax certificate project to an effective date of 1 March 2025.

My estimate is that we should have finality on this matter within the next two weeks.

PAGSA Comments on the Monthly PAYE BRS Withdrawal

PAGSA members are reminded that all PAGSA members are welcome to submit comments on the SARS Monthly PAYE BRS version 1.0 that was issued recently into the public domain using email address [email protected].

These comments must reach us by Thursday 30 November 2023.

Irrespective of whether the Monthly Tax Certificate project is made effective from 1 March 2025 or 1 March 2026, this is an opportunity to finalise the monthly tax certificate requirements as best we can and as soon as possible.

This will assist all PAGSA members to plan their development schedules more efficiently and will also hopefully help to prevent last-minute unforeseen difficulties from cropping up in the final stages of the project.