Paying taxes is a real bummer, and there’s no kick in the teeth quite like seeing what you could have walked away with at the end of the month if the taxman hadn’t come-a-knockin’.

If you happen to be an expat, you’re going to need to start paying closer attention to what that tax collector is after.

An amendment to the Income Tax Act that forms part of the Taxation Laws Amendment Bill of 2017 is of particular interest to you, despite the fact that “many South African expatriates are under the false impression that the law has not been formally amended and will thus not affect them”.

That’s according to IOL, with this below the relevant passage:

The new law states: “There shall be exempt from normal tax any form of remuneration to the extent to which that remuneration does not exceed one million rands in respect of a year of assessment and is received by or accrues to any employee during any year of assessment by way of any salary, leave pay, wage, overtime pay, bonus, gratuity, commission, fee, emolument or allowance… in respect of services rendered outside the Republic by that employee for or on behalf of any employer, if that employee was outside the Republic.”

That new law will only come to effect on March 1, 2020, so you have time to get your ducks in a row.

What are your options? Apparently these are the three schools of thought:

• Some expatriates are starting to wrap up their offshore work and are planning to return to South Africa.
• Financial emigration. To do this, you must notify the South African Revenue Service (Sars) and the South African Reserve Bank that you are no longer “ordinarily resident” in South Africa. This is the only formal route in law permanently to have a status change noted.
• A more cautious group of expatriates have adopted a “wait and see” approach. They are supported by the Barry Pretorius Expatriate Petition Group, which negotiated the R1m exemption and which continues to engage with National Treasury on having the rules relaxed further.

That third option seems like the least effort, which I’m always a fan of, but I’m not sure it will serve you well in the long run.

Of course the only people you should be listening to are the tax experts, because this isn’t the kind of thing you want to leave for a rainy day.

We checked with Galbraith | Rushby and they’re up to speed with everything you need to know, so maybe you want to get cracking on that ASAP.

In addition to tax advice and compliance, they also offer the following:

• Auditing
• Accounting and Bookkeeping
• Secretarial
• Payroll

Sure beats that sticking your head in the sand approach.

[source:iol]