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A newsy update on current financial, tax, statutory and economic affairs and happenings as reported by Dave Bridges from Accounting 4 Associates.
November 2011 INTRODUCTION As
the year draws to a close, it may be of benefit to redefine our performance
goals for the New Year. One such goal may to improve service delivery. In these
tough economic times, we can ill afford to alienate our customers but, at the
same time, we must attract quality clients. We touch on this topic below. TECHNOLOGY In
Excel, when a workbook has multiple worksheets, it can be laborious to use the
mouse to move to the desired worksheet. An easier method is to use CTRL+PageDown
to move to the right and CTRL+PageUp to move to the left. By holding down the
keys, you can move from sheet to sheet rapidly. Adjusting
the width of multiple columns can also be time consuming if each column is
changed a column at a time. Provided the columns to be changed are adjacent to
one another, multiple columns may be changed simultaneously. To do this:
TAXATION Medical
Expense Claims For
the 2012 tax year, a taxpayer who is under 65 is entitled to claim R700 per
month for himself and his first dependant and R 440 per month for each
successive dependant of any contributions made by him to an approved medical
fund. For taxpayers who are under 65, any contributions in excess of these
limits may be claimed. However, the amount of that excess will be reduced, on
assessment, by 7.5% of the taxpayer’s taxable income before the deduction of
medical expenses. These limits do
not apply to persons over 65 years of age. The
Act also permits claims in respect of physical impairments and disabilities.
The Act distinguishes between the two categories by stating that a
disability is a moderate to severe limitation of a person’s ability to
function or perform daily activities as a result of a physical, sensory,
communication, intellectual or mental impairment, if the limitation:
There
is an extensive list of the type of practitioner that is approved to diagnose an
equally extensive list of impairments. In addition, in making his/her diagnosis,
the practitioner is bound by a list of diagnosis criteria. Thus, physical
impairment can be stated as being one that has a minor limitation on a
person’s ability to function normally. Physical
impairment expenses are subjected to the above 7.5% reduction. Disablement
expenses are deductible in full. For the latter to be claimed, the claimant must
be in possession of a form ITR-DD that has been completed by the appropriate
medical practitioner. A new such form must be obtained each year. With
effect from 1 March 2012, the method of claiming a deduction for medical
expenses will change. However, taxpayers who are over 65 will continue to use
the present system. The allowance for disabled family members will fall away. The
new scheme will consist of three elements:
DEADLINES Annual
Duty – end of the month following incorporation date Promotion of Access to Information Act
manual – 31 December 2012 Disposal of a residence from a company or
trust – 31 December 2012 Income Tax Returns – 2011
Individuals: Efilers: Provisional
taxpayers – 31 January 2012
Companies – 12 months after their year end
BUSINESS It
is essential that procedures are in place to ensure quality service delivery. The
first step in designing those procedures is to define where the delivery takes
place and by whom is it delivered. Various
such points may occur in the same business, e.g., front office, telephone,
email. A standard of service must be defined for each of these areas and for the
person that delivers the service. The latter can range from the driver to the
managing director. Each person who interfaces with the customer, whether by
direct contact or by preparing the goods for delivery, will have an influence on
a customer’s perception of the service that you provided. The
standard should deal with such topics as turnaround times for orders, queries or
complaints, the number of times a phone rings before it is answered, how long a
customer may reasonably be kept waiting before receiving attention and returning
calls promptly. These are just some examples from an endless list. Of
course, the standard can only be defined accurately with input from the client
and should be regularly updated to
cater for changes in the client’s perception of your performance. Surveys play
an important part in defining your standards. These should be carefully designed
so as to get to core information without wasting any of the customer’s time.
Of course, these surveys should be analysed by management on a regular basis. Action
should be taken to eradicate sub-standard performance and to encourage quality
service. Regular training sessions should help to improve performances whilst
monthly awards may result in an improvement in the quality of service. ECONOMY With
at least two European countries making contingency plans for the collapse of the
Euro, it seems only a matter of time before this actually occurs. The fallout
from this will impact on all world economies and ours will not escape the
consequences. Europe is one of our major trading partners and any reduction in
that region’s economic activity will result in a reduction of South African
exports. Quite apart from the loss of jobs that this will surely generate there
is a possibility of riots as has been experienced in other countries It is hoped
that our government has put contingency plans in place to cater for these
eventualities. In
the meantime, the debate over nationalisation of the country’s mines continues
and a report on this is due to be presented to the ANC’s National Executive
Committee in the near future. It is hoped that any recommendations will take
into account the impact that nationalisation has had in the countries to the
north of us. However,
a glimmer of hope has been offered by a recent announcement a global plan to
provide liquidity to the financial system by central banks in the US, Canada,
Japan, Britain, Europe and Switzerland. Certainly,
there has been a lot of talk of how jobs are going to be created but, apart from
a very slight reduction in unemployment numbers; there is no evidence of any
positive steps to treat this matter as urgent. In the meantime, inflation is on
the rise and this signals the possibility of an interest rate cut early in the
New Year. Whilst this is good news for individuals and business with large debt
burdens it will mean that those persons living on investment income will have to
tighten their belts somewhat. ANNUAL
CLOSURE This
year, we will be closing our offices on 15 December 2011 and re-opening on 3
January 2013. We wish all our client and their families a peaceful and joyous
festive season and thank them for their support during 2011. TAILPIECE “As long as man continues to be the ruthless
destroyer of lower living beings, he will never know health or peace. For as
long as men massacres animals, they will kill each other. Indeed. He who sows
the seed of murder and pain cannot reap joy and love.” - Pythagoras
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