The following content was published in Newsflash 2022/40 – SARS Notice Employer filing season opens 19 Sept 2022

SARS NOTICE: EMPLOYER FILING SEASON OPENS 19 SEPTEMBER 2022

SARS has issued the following notice relating to the employer filing season in respect of the interim period ending August 2022.

Please note that the filling season opens on 19 September 2022 and closes on 31 October 2022.

Late submissions will result in an administrative penalty equal to 1% of the Year’s PAYE liability which will increase by 1% for each month outstanding up to a maximum of 10% of the year’s PAYE liability.

The SARS notice can be found below.

Dear Employer

EMPLOYER INTERIM RECONCILIATION SUBMISSION: 19 SEPTEMBER TO 31 OCTOBER 2022.

As the South African Revenue Service (SARS) celebrates its 25th anniversary, we value your support and contribution to our country’s economy and her prosperity. We strive to ensure that you understand what we expect from you and what your rights as a taxpayer are. We are committed to improving our service offering to make your compliance easy and seamless.

Reconciliation Season 2022
This year, the Employer Interim Reconciliation Declaration (EMP501) submission period opens on 19 Septenter 2022 and closes on 31 October 2022, Employers are required to reconcile their Monthly Employer Declarations (EMP201) for the first six months of a Reconciliation Year (1 March 2022 to 31 August 2022). These reconciliations are based on the Monthly Employer Declarations (EMP201) submitted, with the tax values of the interim IRP5/lT3(a)s certificates generated, accurate payroll information, employees’ tax (PAYE) payments made, thereafter an Employers Reconciliation Declaration (EMP501) is submitted

We help you comply
To reconcile easily and conveniently we would like to draw your attention to important information you need to know.
– Employers, Tax Practitioners and Payroll Administrators need to download the latest Employers e@syFile version, which will be released on 16 September 2022. This can be done via SARS eFiling.
– Employers must submit all outstanding annual EMP501 reconciliations and make sure the monthly declarations (EMP201) for the reconciliation period have been submitted, and all payments due have been paid before submitting the interim EMP501 for 2022.
– Where employees are not registered for income tax purposes, employers must them using Single (“Individual ITREG’) and bundle IT Registration (*Bunded ITREG’) for existing tax numbers as well as new registrations available on e@syFiIe.
– First-time job seekers can register for income tax via eFiling or on the SARS MobiAp

SARS Service Charter
Your Rights
– SARS will help by providing service, responses, instructions and access to information and systems.
– SARS will respect your constitutional right to privacy.
Your Obligations
– Always submit an accurate, fully paid declaration to SARS on time
– Comply with all prescribed administrative processes and timeframes.

How the PAGSA serve the payroll fraternity
The Payroll Authors Group of South Africa (PAGSA) was established in 1989 with the active support of SARS and is an ‘Association of Persons’ registered in terms of section 30B of the Income Tax Act, with a constitution approved by SARS.
Since its establishment 30 years ago, the PAGSA has represented the companies that develop, supply and support computerised payroll systems in South Africa, known as the “Payroll members” of the PAGSA.

In its role as payroll industry representative, the PAGSA’s mandate is to focus on employment-related legislation and regulation requirements, and to engage with the various statutory bodies (National Treasury, the Department of Employment and Labour, the Unemployment Insurance and Compensation Funds, SARS, etc.) to facilitate the impact of their legislation and requirements on payroll suppliers, employers, and tax practitioners.

The PAGSA plays a critical role by providing balanced and informed input to the statutory bodies to identify anomalies and blockages in current requirements as well as to help shape future requirements and is valued by these bodies as an essential non-partisan partner.

As a result of this role, the PAGSA is uniquely positioned to provide informed and up to date information on employment tax related legislation, administration requirements, practices, tax certificate requirements, electronic returns etc.

It follows that the PAGSA’s information services are of great value to its members, and in response to industry requests, we have recently opened a new class of membership to allow tax practitioners and employers from small to large, to join the group as an “Associate member”.

Rhona van Taak is a well-known tax expert in the South African payroll industry and for the last ten years provided employment tax related advice to PAGSA members. Rhona van Taak have served at SARS for 27 years until 2011 where she was responsible for the operational policies and procedures, issuing of rulings and design of the EMP501 reconciliation process as the Process manager for PAYE, SDL, UIF and VAT. Rhona van Taak boast an in-depth knowledge of payroll tax legislation and related administrative processes. Rhona van Taak’s role at PAGSA is primarily to provide advise on queries submitted to ensure that members have access to accurate advice on employment tax related issues. Rhona van Taak is also advising SAIT members on employment related tax issues.

Niel has worked at SARS from 1977 until his retirement on 31 January 2023. Niel Nel acquired a National Diploma in Tax and Financial Accounting. Starting his career, Niel Nel worked in various SARS branch offices and ending his career upon his retirement he worked at SARS Head Office where he was instrumental in the implementation of the PAYE system in 1994 which was previous only manual records, the implementation of the electronic tax certificates in 1999, the implementation of SDL processes in 2000, the UIF processes in 2002 and the implementation of ETI in 2014. Niel Nel collaborate with external SARS stakeholders over the years and was tasked to manage these relationships.

Beatrie Gouws has extensive experience in the tax industry and is an expert in employment related taxes. Beatrie has in-depth knowledge on tax policy, legislative interpretation, practical implementation, and operational structures. She interacts frequently with National Treasury and SARS due to her involvement with these various bodies.

Rob Cooper is one of the founding members and current Chairman of the PAGSA. Rob Cooper completed his B.Sc in Computer Science at the University of Pretoria in 1971. He was one of the founders of Sage VIP Payroll and HR and many years of design and programming of various financial systems followed, including a number of payroll systems for different environments.

Over the last thirty years, Rob Cooper’s focus has been on diverse legislation that governs the employment and payroll industry and liaises with statutory bodies on behalf of payroll system suppliers on a regular basis. Rob Cooper’s extensive experience and in-depth understanding of the many employment laws that impact the payroll industry is used to update and give future direction to Payroll and HR systems.

Privacy Policy
1) Introduction
The PAGSA, website URL address: https://www.pagsa.org.za/ appreciates your business and trust. Please read this Privacy Policy governing our website, Associate platform, and any other technology, product, or service made available by the PAGSA.

2) Data Collected
Data storage location

We are a South African based company and operate web servers hosted in South Africa. Our hosting provider Intellihost (Pty) Ltd. adheres to the South African privacy laws, ensuring that your data is securely stored and POPI compliant. For more information on Intellihost privacy policy, please see here: Intellihost Privacy Policy.

Registration data
If you register on our website, we store your chosen username and your email address and any additional personal information added to your user profile. You can view, edit, or delete your personal information at any time (except changing your username). Our website administrators can also see and edit this information.

Comments
When you leave comments on the website we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection.

Contact form
Information submitted through the contact form on our site is sent to our company email, hosted by Intellihost. For more information on Intellihost privacy policy, please see here: Intellihost Privacy Policy.

These submissions are only kept for customer service purposes they are never used for marketing purposes or shared with third parties.

Scope analytics
We use Intellihost Scope Analytics on our site for anonymous reporting of site usage. So, no personalized data is stored.

Cases for using the personal data
We use your personal information in the following cases:

Verification/identification of the user during website usage;
Providing Technical Assistance;
Sending updates to our users with important information to inform about news/changes;
Checking the accounts’ activity in order to prevent fraudulent transactions and ensure the security
over our customers’ personal information;
Customize the website to make your experience more personal and engaging;
Guarantee overall performance and administrative functions run smoothly.
3) Embedded Content
Pages on this site may include embedded content, like YouTube videos, for example. Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if you visited the other website.

These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website. Below you can find a list of the services we use:

Facebook
The Facebook page plugin is used to display our Facebook timeline on our site. Facebook has its own cookie and privacy policies over which we have no control. There is no installation of cookies from Facebook and your IP is not sent to a Facebook server until you consent to it. See their privacy policy here: Facebook Privacy Policy.

Twitter
We use the Twitter API to display our tweets timeline on our site. Twitter has its own cookie and privacy policies over which we have no control. Your IP is not sent to a Twitter server until you consent to it. See their privacy policy here: Twitter Privacy Policy.

YouTube
We use YouTube videos embedded on our site. YouTube has its own cookie and privacy policies over which we have no control. There is no installation of cookies from YouTube and your IP is not sent to a YouTube server until you consent to it. See their privacy policy here: YouTube Privacy Policy.

Consent Choice
We provide you with the choice to accept this or not, we prompt consent boxes for all embedded content, and no data is transferred unless you have given us your consent.

4) Cookies
This site uses cookies – small text files that are placed on your machine to help the site provide a better user experience. In general, cookies are used to retain user preferences, store information for things like shopping carts, and provide anonymized tracking data to third party applications like Google Analytics. Cookies generally exist to make your browsing experience better.

However, you may prefer to disable cookies on this site. The most effective way to do this is to disable cookies in your browser. We suggest consulting the help section of your browser.

Necessary cookies (all site visitors)

cfduid:Is used for our CDN CloudFlare to identify individual clients behind a shared IP address and apply security settings on a per-client basis.
PHPSESSID:To identify your unique session on the website.
Necessary cookies (additional for logged in customers)

wp-auth:Used by WordPress to authenticate logged-in visitors, password authentication, and user verification.
wordpress_logged_in_{hash}:Used by WordPress to authenticate logged-in visitors, password authentication, and user verification.
wordpress_test_cookieUsed by WordPress to ensure cookies are working correctly.
wp-settings-[UID]:WordPress sets a few wp-settings-[UID] cookies. The number on the end is your individual user ID from the users database table. This is used to customize your view of the admin interface, and possibly also the main site interface.
wp-settings-[UID]:WordPress also sets a few wp-settings-{time}-[UID] cookies. The number on the end is your individual user ID from the users database table. This is used to customize your view of the admin interface, and possibly also the main site interface.
5) Who has access to your data
If you are not a registered client for our site, there is no personal information we can retain or view regarding yourself.

If you are a client with a registered account, your personal information can be accessed by:

Our system administrators.
Our supporters when they (in order to provide support) need to get the information about the client accounts and access.
6) Third party access to your data
We don’t share your data with third-parties in a way as to reveal any of your personal information like email, name, etc. The only exceptions to that rule are for partners we have to share limited data with in order to provide the services you expect from us.

7) How long we retain your data
When you submit a support ticket or a comment, it’s metadata is retained indefinitely unless you tell us to remove it. We use this data so that we can recognize you and approve your comments automatically instead of holding them for moderation.

If you register on our website, we also store the personal information you provide in your user profile. You can see, edit, or delete your personal information at any time (except changing your username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.

8) Security Measures
We use the SSL/HTTPS protocol throughout our site. This encrypts our user communications with the servers so that personal identifiable information is not captured/hijacked by third parties without authorization.

In case of a data breach, system administrators will immediately take all necessary steps to ensure system integrity, will contact affected users and will attempt to reset passwords if needed.

9) Your Data Rights
General rights
If you have a registered account on this website or have left comments, you can request an exported file of the personal data we retain, including any additional data you have provided to us.

You can also request that we erase any of the personal data we have stored. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes. In short, we cannot erase data that is vital to you being an active customer (i.e. basic account information like an email address).

If you wish that all of your data is erased, we will no longer be able to offer any support or other product-related services to you.

10) Third Party Websites
The PAGSA may post links to third party websites on this website. These third party websites are not screened for privacy or security compliance by the PAGSA, and you release us from any liability for the conduct of these third party websites.

All social media sharing links, either displayed as text links or social media icons do not connect you to any of the associated third parties, unless you explicitly click on them.

Please be aware that this Privacy Policy, and any other policies in place, in addition to any amendments, does not create rights enforceable by third parties or require disclosure of any personal information relating to members of the Service or Site. The PAGSA bears no responsibility for the information collected or used by any advertiser or third party website.

Please review the privacy policy and terms of service for each site you visit through third party links.

11) Release of your data for legal purposes
At times it may become necessary for the PAGSA, for legal purposes, to release your information in response to a request from a government agency or a private litigant.

You agree that we may disclose your information to a third party where we believe, in good faith, that it is desirable to do so for the purposes of a civil action, criminal investigation, or other legal matter.

In the event that we receive a subpoena affecting your privacy, we may elect to notify you to give you an opportunity to file a motion to quash the subpoena, or we may attempt to quash it ourselves, but we are not obligated to do either.

We may also proactively report you, and release your information to, third parties where we believe that it is prudent to do so for legal reasons, such as our belief that you have engaged in fraudulent activities.

You release us from any damages that may arise from or relate to the release of your information to a request from law enforcement agencies or private litigants.

Any passing on of personal data for legal purposes will only be done in compliance with the laws of the country you reside in.

12) Amendments
We may amend this Privacy Policy from time to time. When we amend this Privacy Policy, we will update this page accordingly and require you to accept the amendments in order to be permitted to continue using our services.

13) Protection of your personal information under the POPI act
After many years in the making, the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 (POPI) commenced on the 1st of July 2021, and like most companies in South Africa, the PAGSA and all those entities who belong to our Association, continuously strive to ensure we protect your personal information, limit access to your data and ensure that your data is kept private to the best of our ability, and in line with the requirements of the POPI Act. We also demand the same level of assurance from all of our suppliers, and in particular, those suppliers who host and manage our clients’ data.

As a PAGSA client, business partner or supplier, you are part of our information database through which we regularly share important product information, send important legislative updates and notifications, and notify you of pertinent information in relation to our service offerings, many of which you have opted to use.

We respect your privacy and as such provide you with the option to remove yourself from our database at any time.

If you are happy to continue receiving notifications and emails from us, no action is needed from you. Should you however wish to be removed from our email and or other communication platforms please let us know by sending an email to [email protected] with the word “unsubscribe” in the subject line. Should we receive this instruction from you we will remove you from all our communication channels immediately.

Should you have any questions or queries about the application of the POPI Act within our business please send an email to [email protected].

Website Disclaimer

Disclaimer of Warranties
All information made available by the PAGSA is published in good faith and for general information purposes only. We do not make any warranties about the completeness, reliability and accuracy of this information. Any action you take upon the information made available by the PAGSA is strictly at your own risk and we will not be liable for any losses or damages in connection with the use of our services or information.

Limitation of Liabilities
The PAGSA and any of its subsidiaries or affiliates shall in no event be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, consequential, or exemplary damages. This shall include, but not be limited to damages for loss of profits, business interruption, business reputation or goodwill, loss of programs or information or other intangible loss arising out of use of or the inability to use the service, or information, or any permanent or temporary cessation of such services or access to information, or the deletion or corruption of any content or information, or the failure to store any content or information. The above limitation shall apply whether or not the PAGSA has been advised of or should have been aware of the possibility of such damages. In jurisdictions where the exclusions or limitation of liability for consequential or incidental damages is not allowed, the liability of the PAGSA is limited to the greatest extent permitted by law.

Views and Opinions
Any views or opinions expressed or presented in whatever form by the PAGSA are based on the information provided and are not binding on the PAGSA.

Confidentiality
Any information issued or made available by the PAGSA is confidential and intended solely for the use of the intended recipient. If you are not the intended recipient it is strictly prohibited to disseminate, disclose, copy, distribute or take any action in reliance on the contents of the information provided.

Provision of Services
The PAGSA is entitled to modify, improve or discontinue any of its services or products at its sole discretion and without notice to you even if it may result in you being prevented from accessing the service or product.

Proprietary Rights
This website may contain material which is owned by or licensed to us. This material includes, but is not limited to, the design, layout, look, appearance, graphics trademarks, service marks and logos protected by intellectual property laws and international intellectual property treaties. The PAGSA authorizes you to view the contents of the website for personal, non-commercial use, but our content may not be sold, reproduced or distributed without our written permission. Any third-party trademarks, service marks and logos are the property of their respective owners. Any further rights not specifically granted herein are reserved.

External Content
This website may include hyperlinks to third-party content or websites. While we strive to provide only links to useful and ethical websites, we have no control over the content and nature of these sites and the links to other websites do not imply a recommendation for all the content found on these sites. The PAGSA is not responsible for, and does not endorse any advertising, products or resources available from these sites.

Viruses
While every precaution has been taken, the PAGSA accepts no liability for any damages caused by any virus transmitted by an email or any other means.

The PAGSA management team as at the beginning of July 2023 consist of the following individuals:

Rob Cooper – CHAIRMAN
Beatrie Gouws – MANCO MEMBER
Niel Nel – MANCO MEMBER
Rob Nowicki – MANCO MEMBER
Rhona van Taak – MANCO MEMBER

A TRIBUTE TO DAVE TERON ON HIS PASSING

It was with great sadness that I heard the news of the passing of Dave Teron on Tuesday 28th February 2023.

Some of those who are new to payrolls might not know of Dave Theron, but Dave Theron played a major role in achieving recognition for payrolls in South Africa as a financial system that stands independently of other systems on its own feet.

Besides opening his own payroll supplier company, Paywell, in the early 1980’s, Dave Theron also established both the South African Payroll Association as well as the Payroll Academy that has helped thousands of learners over the years to achieve a National Diploma in Payroll Administration Services, putting them in a position to be able to seek job opportunities in this field.

In 1989, with the assistance of the SARS Director of law at the time, Mr Ian Meikeljohn, the Payroll Authors Group was established to assist both SARS and payroll suppliers to provide for the complexity of the administration of the SITE requirements in their respective systems.

The five payroll provider companies that were instrumental in the establishment of the PAG were Accsys, Paywell (represented by Dave), Paywise, QPAC, and VIP Payroll.

In short, Dave can only be described as a ‘baanbreker’ of the South African payroll world.

He was a regular figure in the gym and spent much of his free time in diving spots around the world, including Indonesia (particularly Bali) and the remote waters of New Guinea, taking beautiful underwater photographs of the reefs and seawater life.

Dave’s surviving family includes his wife, two children, and grandchildren. We send our condolences to them during this difficult time.

From the PAGSA and from me in particular, thank you Dave for your massive contribution to payrolls over the years.

Rest in peace.