Passing of Costa Divaris – End of a tax era
I note with sadness the passing of Costa Divaris which marks the end of a tax era. Costa was a doyen of the tax world being a co-author of various tax publications including the original standard authority on tax, Silke on South African Income Tax. Costa’s monthly tax...
Transfer pricing: loans to offshore trusts revisited
SARS establishes a high-net-worth unit The Minister of Finance announced in his Budget Speech 2021 that: SARS will establish a dedicated unit to improve compliance of individuals with wealth and complex financial arrangements. This would naturally, in my view, include...
Annuitization – Provident fund vested lump-sum retirement benefits and tax
The compulsory annuitization of benefits from a provident fund, despite a laboured birth since 2016, becomes a reality on 1 March 2021. See 212 tsh 2020. In essence, the harmonization of tax treatment of all retirement funds, whether pension, retirement annuity or...
SARS in Action
Common reporting standards (CRS) SARS is receiving information and now acting on the CRS automatic exchange of information with eighty-seven foreign jurisdictions concerning RSA taxpayers with offshore investments. Special voluntary disclosure program (SVDP) In...
Change of tax residency status and RSA trust beneficiaries
Change of tax-residency status I have already canvassed the criteria governing the change of residence of an RSA resident (see 192, 200 TSH 2019). In essence, one must have regard to: Any applicable double tax agreement. The case law on the expression ‘ordinarily...
Prescription – Assessments v tax debt
Taxpayers raising the procedural defence of prescription to a notification from SARS demanding tax payment of an amount of some historic tax year must distinguish between a prescribed assessment and a historic tax debt, since different prescription periods apply. For...
Adv. Anthony (Tony) Harding Davey
Editor
Tony is a co-author of Broomberg on Tax Strategy (Lexis Nexis). He is also the columnist for Costa Divaris’ (ex Silke on Income Tax) monthly tax newsletter as well as the South African contributing author to two international publications Planning and Administration of Offshore and Onshore Trusts (Bloomsbury Publishing Plc) and Tolley’s International Succession Laws (STEP). He appears as a guest tax adviser on Summit T.V. Prior to establishing the firm, Tony acted as General Counsel to three JSE-listed financial services companies. As a member (honorary Status Conferred in 2014) of the National Bar Council of SA (previously IAASA), Tony negotiates Alternate Dispute Resolution and litigates before the Tax Board and Court.