Tax Practitioners: Do You Know That You Need A Signed Mandate?
SPONSORED: Tax Practitioners need to know that there is in fact no longer a choice in this, says Mark Silberman.In my last tax webinar, 60% of the respondents in a poll advised that there was no signed mandate between their Tax Practice and their taxpayer clients. Tax Practitioners need to know that there is in fact no longer a choice in this as a properly worded mandate is absolutely essential and a condition of using the SARS e-Filing website. It’s also a question of the Tax Practitioner limiting their risk exposure protecting them against SARS and claims from their clients. Having a properly signed mandate is a condition of making use of the e-filing system, either the website or through an independent service provider.
The SARS terms and conditions say:
“If the e-Filer is a registered Tax Practitioner or a person referred to in section 240(2)(d) of the Act, the e-Filer must obtain a written mandate from the taxpayer, which mandate must be provided to SARS and at a minimum –

1. detail the authority granted to the e-Filer by the taxpayer; and
2. contain an acknowledgement by the taxpayer that any and all liabilities under a tax Act remains with the taxpayer.”

Criminal offence
Now to add to the risk profile of a Tax Practitioner we have tax law that is changing. Non-compliance in producing tax returns in terms of a tax act could be a criminal offence. E.g. failure to advise SARS of a change in address or a clerical error on a return could result in a criminal record. In other words where there is no wilful intent a taxpayer could land up with a criminal record as SARS does not have to prove wilful intent when the legislation of the draft bill is enacted. Clearly the constitutionality of this has to be tested.
Tax Practitioners need to think about this potential change in law and how it will affect the risk profile of their practice. Owing to the complications in tax law there are many issues that arise in tax return production where there is no wilful intent. So, imagine being a Tax Practitioner and your client gets arrested for a tax error which was your fault and you don’t have a mandate. The mandate is to protect you and is a method of passing the risk of providing tax services back to your taxpayer client.
The mandate
What must the mandate contain? The following clauses are a must in a mandate but obviously there is a lot more:

• MY FIRM the e-Filer acts as a duly authorised agent on your behalf.
• You will be liable to SARS for the due and timeous fulfilment of all your obligations towards SARS.
• Any information submitted by My Firm to SARS by means of the e-Filing service will be based on information received from you and you are responsible for ensuring that such information is true and correct.
• Before we submit any information to SARS by means of the E-filing service we will need your confirmation that the information being submitted is a true and correct reflection of what you have provided.
• MY FIRM will not be responsible for any tax liability imposed by SARS for any reason whatsoever.

We have designed a mandate produced automatically by Accfin Sky Tax which is provided to all our users, which can automatically be emailed and digitally signed by your clients, and returned automatically to Sky Tax.
The mandate is also used as an educational document for taxpayer clients as they don’t actually know what is involved in the complications of tax and do not understand when things go wrong or SARS wants a verification or an audit. All this is set up in the mandate letter so that there is understanding which will protect the Tax Practitioner against claims.
A mandate can be set up to last for a couple years, perhaps up to three. Where there are changes in laws that effect the mandate it should be updated as soon as possible.
For a copy of the mandate click here: https://accfinsoftware.lpages.co/accfin-sky-tax-mandate/.

The Banks need to play a bigger role where sustainable business have timing differences
I have been in business for some 30 years and I have never ever seen anything like this meltdown happen before, yes, we have had our ups and downs and of course the economy was in decline, but never a meltdown with such force. The steps that the President took was the right thing to do, it’s the only way to avoid the affect that this virus has had on the world. Time will tell if we have dodged the bullet. 
The problem with the timing of the lock-down is that there are unintended consequences, the most notable being the drying up of cash in the economy, especially for small and medium size because as all business is holding on to their cash resources because of the uncertainty while smaller businesses go to the wall.
I direct this article to the banks and I do offer them some guidance if they will be gracious enough to at least take note. Banks have a very important role to play in saving South Africa. Unfortunately, they need to look beyond the bottom line, because if they don’t it will take us 15 to 20 years to come right.
The government didn’t give instructions to the banks. First world economies have provided huge amounts of cash for the business world and to people who are going to be affected by this lockdown, unfortunately this will never be the case in our country as there is no money after 10 years of in-built stealing!
We have to look at other sources. Already some of the billionaires have put up money and we must applaud them and be grateful.
The most import thing is for business to keep jobs as best they can even if there are temporary layoffs. It therefore behoves all businesses to try and keep going if they have a chance of sustainability.
So, who is in the position to help business in the formal sector the most! It’s the banks. There has already been a change in regulation of the amounts of assets they need to hold so that they can lend more and I appeal to them that this is their time! Unfortunately, banks manage their clients’ accounts by way of algorithm so it’s not what a senior banker says it’s what the computer says, and many sustainable businesses fail the algorithm test! In the past year’s banks have adopted a much tougher approach on the business world owing to the economy and of course this affected medium-sized and small business detrimentally.
There are basically 3 business type situations that I wish to set out other than essential service business which remain open; -

1. Businesses that can work remotely that can continue to run but are sustainable.
2. Businesses that were forced to close down as they were dealing with the public, restaurants bars stores etc but they will be sustainable when things open up.
3. Businesses that were not doing well prior to lock down owing to economic conditions and needed money anyway in order to survive.

In regard to business type 1 and 2 above they are sustainable, the only problem is that they have a timing difference in their cash flow owing to the lockdown and the uncertainty.  Many of these businesses employ people; they have created jobs and do good in the economy and without the help of getting their cash flow timing differences met they may have to close down. They are beyond the help of what is available or their own resources, it’s now up to the banks who know these businesses to help.
How does the bank make the determination to grant the help needed to bridge the timing difference? They have the big data; the algorithms and they must bring in a team of skills which are surely available to help to make those sustainable businesses that are worth saving survive. This will be extremely beneficial to the future of this country and of course the banks.
This does not mean that banks should rescue businesses that are not sustainable and which are held together by the emotions of their proprietors. If there is no hope, the businesses must be liquidated together with some SOE’s as well. There is no point in throwing good money after bad, the lockdown is just making the inevitable happen sooner.

What is all the fuss about? The CIPC changed the requirements of the Compliance checklist on the 6th March 2020 which became compulsory for all companies to complete starting on 1 January 2020.
By: Mark Silberman B.Acc. C.A.(SA) Accfin Software (Pty) Ltd

The CIPC in its latest notice has suspended companies who are not audited or whose financials are not independently reviewed from doing the checklist, it appears because of all the complaints. The checklist requires directors to confirm if they have complied with 24 sections of the companies act, by ticking Yes, No or N/A. e.g. Have you complied that with S4?

Why are there so many complaints about a form that should take less than 10 minutes. Why has the company secretarial community fussed about the compliance checklist for small companies? Is this because they have not complied with company law provisions or because they think it’s too much work. Don’t professionals want to earn fees?

The new companies act has made many things easier and has reduced auditing for smaller companies. It is also more flexible for different types of companies with custom-built Memorandums of Incorporation or MOI’s. Most companies in South Africa don’t need to be audited because they have a low Public Interest Score which is calculated on set criteria contained in the company regulations, mostly based on size. Some companies volunteer to be audited or financiers insist that they are audited. The act has modernised many things and has provisions that try and protect all stakeholders in a company, not only shareholders but employees and creditors. There are also provisions that protect minorities against abuse. It’s not perfect but certainly better than we have had before.

Corruption is endemic and has been carried out by everyone, government, big business and of course small business. In order for our country to grow and create jobs, corruption has to be stamped out. I don’t have to tell about the effect of corruption on all citizens, we see it daily in South Africa.

Let me be clear, it does not matter what type of company you have, the companies act applies to your company no matter how small or how large.
Let’s deal with the situation before we knew about the compliance form checklist. The new 2008 Companies Act which came into being on 1 May 2011, the provisions of which are quite easy to read and easy to understand. Before the compliance checklist, directors should have still understood the companies act and should have made sure that their company was compliant according to the companies act, and if they were not able to, they should have sought the help of their accountants or the accountant’s secretarial practitioners. Good company secretarial practitioners made sure their clients complied.

Let’s take this a step further, during this prior period (before 1 January) did accountants not advise their clients accordingly about company law? Did they not advise them about a distribution when one took place? Did they know what a distribution was? Did they not advise them about a share register that they didn’t have and did they not help them fix it? What did they do about directors’ debit loans, did they just leave them because they did not think it was a distribution? What was the position where there was a fundamental transaction and the fact that a small private company could be defined as a regulated company?  Did they not know these facts and ignored their compliance responsibilities? It seems that many of them did know about all these things, that is the only explanation that I have for this furore.

The point I am making is what is the big deal about doing a check list to test a company’s company law compliance that would take less than 10 minutes, or is it because the accountants and secretarial practitioners did not do their jobs for smaller companies? It can only be a big deal if there was no compliance in the past as no one was checking.

The real issue is that the compliance form is just the tip of the iceberg and points to various aspects of company law that no one knows about.
For more information, visit: www.accfin.co.za
Tel: 0861 ACCFIN (0861 222 346) / +27 11 262 4033

THE CIPC COMPLIANCE CHECKLIST
The new companies act has made many things easier and has reduced auditing for smaller companies.  In fact, most companies in South Africa don’t need to be audited. The act has modernised many things and has provisions that try and protect all stakeholders in a company, not only shareholders but employees and creditors of which SARS is one. There are many provisions that protect stakeholders and minorities against abuse. It’s not perfect but certainly better than we have had before.
Reading all the articles on SAIBA and Accounting Weekly about the CIPC compliance checklist and the negative comments by various parties and why suddenly this is a huge problem 6 months after the compliance notice was published. Why now? I believe that many of the complainants do not understand the issues involved.
First of all, let’s get to the facts in South Africa! Corruption is endemic and has been carried out by everyone, government, big business and of course small business. In order for our country to grow and create jobs corruption has to be stamped out.
This article deals with what has arisen with the CIPC Compliance checklist and the negative publicity.
In short this is what has been published by various sources which I summarise for convenience: -

• SAIBA – It’s their principal concern that the compliance checklist will raise the cost of compliance for smaller business.
• Nicolaas Van Wyk the CEO of SAIBA says that owing to large scale corporate scandals this is an overreaction.
• It appears from some of the articles that the CIPC has back-tracked on smaller companies doing the compliance checklist and the CIPC has been complimented for doing this.
• Osidon takes on the CIPC and wins.
• Osidon CEO Hennie Ferreira said it would undermine the country’s drive for investment as it will look like we are over-regulated and most of the burden would fall on accountants and cost businesses about R1,2 billion per year in fees.
• Following a meeting between Osidon and the CIPC Commissioner the CIPC agreed to abolish the mandatory compliance checklist for small businesses that don’t require audits says Ferreira.
• Osidon says that they have received an email abolishing the checklist for smaller companies from the CIPC.
• SAIBA – Official Notice – “Until we have a final notice from the CIPC we urge members to obtain an instruction from their clients on whether to submit the current Checklist or postpone submission until more clarity is received.”
• The article in Accounting Weekly seems to change a bit by saying talks are still ongoing and the compliance checklist for smaller companies is not abolished after saying the deal is done.

LACK OF COMPANY LAW KNOWLEDGE
It’s true that there is a lack of company law knowledge in the accounting profession. I know this for a fact as I have been teaching company law to company Secretarial Practitioners and Partners in accounting firms for the last 15 years. Directors of companies and small companies know even less. Facts are facts and we need to deal with this lack of knowledge and come to grips with it.
THE SITUATION BEFORE THE COMPLIANCE CHECKLIST WAS INTRODUCED
Let’s deal with the situation before we knew about the compliance form checklist. The new 2008 Companies Act came into being on 1 May 2011 the provisions of which are quite easy to read, there are courses and there are very good textbooks that tell you what these provisions are. So, before the compliance form, directors should have still understood the companies act and should have made sure that the company was compliant according to the laws. The law is the law and needs to be carried out. If the directors did not know about a compliance issue, they relied on their accountants and the company secretarial practitioners who do the company secretarial transactions anyway. Good company secretarial practitioners made sure their clients complied.
So, during this period did accountants not advise their clients accordingly about the law. Did they not advise them about a distribution when one took place? Did they not advise them about a share register that they didn’t have and did they not help them fix it? What did they do about directors’ debit loans, did they just leave them because they did not think it was a distribution? What was the position where there was a fundamental transaction and the fact that the company could be defined as a regulated company?  Did they not know these facts and ignore the compliance responsibilities? Many of them did know about all these things.
By now you are starting to understand where I going with this!
WHATS ACTUALLY CHANGED NOW THAT THERE IS A COMPLIANCE CHECK LIST
So, what’s changed now is that we now have to answer a checklist to indicate if we have been doing our jobs and complying with the law since 2011 which we should have been doing anyway. Now suddenly there is over-regulation, interpretation issues and moaning about all kinds of things because accountants or directors responsible did not do their  jobs in the first place or did they, and they are now moaning about a form that has to be filed, a form that if they did their jobs properly by making sure company secretarial transaction were taken care of would take 10 minutes or less for most companies.
The compliance form is the CIPC’s right to ensure that compliance takes place. Many companies in South Africa if they don’t have a company secretary certainly the bigger ones employ the company secretarial department of the accounting firm to carry out the company secretarial duties and they know if there is compliance or not. We have to do this anyway so why are we complaining about a form that helps us comply, helps the community and helps South Africa.
THE ARTCLES TALKS ABOUT SMALLER COMPANIES
We are talking about smaller companies which may not be a concern because it won’t cause the economy to go into a decline as it is not systemic. Of course, it will cause decline, one company at a time. If one job is lost because of non-compliance or if a creditor loses money because of non-compliance then there is a problem and it needs to be addressed. Have you noticed that company insolvencies are on the increase?
What about a distribution that is missed and the company is liquidated and the directors are sued by a shareholder or creditor, who is to blame? Sorry it can’t be the accountant who compiled the accounts because he did not do a compliance form an he was not even aware of a distribution! The compliance checklist is an opportunity to learn and correct what is wrong and make small business a better place.
OVER-REGULATION AND INVESTMENT IN SOUTH AFRICA
In the Accounting Week article, it mentioned that “overregulation flies in the face of government’s plan to turn the economy around”. This is absolute nonsense in regard to this matter as this is not over-regulation as this is a check to make sure that we are running our companies compliantly which we should have been doing anyway since 2011. What does this say for the accounting profession if we are complaining about this?
The compliance checklist itself should attract more investment into South Africa as investors want to see that their investments are safe and won’t be subjected to abuse by crooked directors.
THE CORE OF THE ARGUMENT IS SMALL BUSINESS
Let’s get to the core of what the argument is. It looks like bigger companies are going to have to do this checklist anyway and we might get a pass on smaller companies that are not audited. This is wrong as the companies that are not audited are precisely the companies that we need to do the compliance check list for as these companies don’t know any better and don’t know the law and need their accountants to help, but may not be getting any help at all.
Let’s take a smaller company as an example, the ones that are going to get a pass on this. Say a small company starting to grow, there are no secretarial transactions and there are no distributions during the course of the year. They keep a share register but there is no movement. In order to comply with most of the questions on the questionnaire the accountant does it in about 5 minutes – what’s the big deal and they even charge for it! Where is this over-regulation?
THE QUESTION OF RISK
There is a question of risk and the directors are in fact responsible so we need to do what we do in the tax environment and pass the risk back to the directors and this can easily be done by a standard mandate that all the directors sign. In fact, if you do the company secretarial work you should have a mandate signed specifically for the secretarial work which will include the compliance form.
Saiba’s principle concern is that it will raise the costs for small businesses. Sure, it will, companies will pay a fee of at least R750 per annum to ensure that they comply and make them safe.
CLAIM OF R1,2 BILLION IN FEES TO ACCOUNTANTS
There must be a serious question over the amount claimed as a cost to the country.
I refer to SARS 2019 statistics that states that expected company tax returns are 991,207 of which 814,151 returns have been assessed. Now we have been told that CC’s out number companies by 8 to 1. This means that there are only 110,135 company returns which includes all size companies. CC’s don’t do the checklist. Let’s say that 80% of these companies are small companies. This means that the compliance checklist only applies to 88,108 companies. Say the fee is R750  per checklist   per submission which comes to R82 million charge to the economy.
This is nowhere near R1,2 billion. Whatever the fees charged it does create jobs in the profession teaches accountants and directors about company law and improves compliance in the country.
SAICA SAYS THE CHECKLIST HAS INTERPRETATION PROBLEMS
Let’s say you need to answer the question “did the company comply with Section 4”. Section 4 deals with the solvency and liquidity test which is triggered by distributions of the company. This mean that the filer has to know what the distributions are. They are clearly visible in the act. If one knows the companies act there is no interpretation required. I can deal with many of the other questions on the same basis.
The CIPC can improve the checklist by having sub questions, like did the company pay a dividend, do a buyback etc.  I guess there will be complaints about this because of the extra time. I would be in favour of this as it makes everything very clear.
OSIDON SAYS THEY GOT AN EMAIL ABOLISHING THE COMPLIANCE CHECKLIST FROM THE CIPC
Since when does the CIPC publish a notice through an accounting firm?
SAIBA in an Official Notice says – “Until we have a final notice from the CIPC we urge members to obtain an instruction from their clients on whether to submit the current Checklist or postpone submission until more clarity is received.” The important point here is that the list should be done.
CONCLUSION
I believe that I have dealt with some very valid points based on my experience and the knowledge that I have of company law and would implore the CIPC not to backtrack on something that I believe is extremely important to this country and the economy and is important to them as they would not have implemented this in at all in the first place if they did not think it was important.
If one looks at the proposed new companies act amendments the new provisions takes compliance even further. That’s a discussion for another day.
 
Mark Silberman
23 February 2020
https://vimeo.com/388816345

LET’S GET THE CIPC COMPLIANCE FORM STRAIGHT
I am not one for writing blogs or getting entangled in posts making use of social media. I’ve written blogs where I have been incensed about what is going on around me which mostly relates to service delivery!
This would be a post about the situation that has arisen in company law and the CIPC compliance form which is an attempt to improve company law compliance which we all know is at an all-time low!
Our competitors are going around saying that the new CIPC compliance form has been put on hold or is going to be delayed. This is used because they heard it verbally from someone at the CIPC and is used as an excuse because they can’t deliver what we have. This is rumour and can’t be relied upon!
In our system Sky Sec, we produce the document required to be signed by the client with the information to be posted on the CIPC website. Check out our videos!
I have news for everyone it actually doesn’t matter whether the compliance form is going to be delayed or is going ahead because compliance in regard to what has been specified by the CIPC is in fact required! It was supposed to be carried out by all companies from that time the new Companies Act was implemented in 2011. By saying we can’t do the compliance form therefore we are not going to help our clients with the necessary compliance is in fact ridiculous!
What’s even more critical is that every Company Secretarial Practitioner needs to produce an engagement or mandate letter which of course our system Sky Sec does if you are going to be involved in helping your clients comply and of course our integrated digital signature gets authority from your clients.
So, the fact that a competitor cannot produce something to help their Secretarial Practitioner clients help their secretarial clients do the CIPC compliance does not mean that companies don’t have to do it. We all know that the law is the law and this is a wakeup call so let’s embrace it. The sections on the compliance form need to be done from now on and filed if necessary. Let’s do the necessary compliance and let’s carry out the laws of the country as we are supposed to!
If any Company Secretarial Practitioner or company wishes to find out more about our system that will help you with this compliance please log onto the following link for a short video or give me a call or connect with me and watch for Fridays repeat webinar.
https://vimeo.com/388816345
 

ITS NOT GREENER ON THE OTHER SIDE
How does an accounting practise go from running a relatively reasonable system that works and in this instance, I refer to ProSeries? The firm is now faced with a choice of doing an upgrade either to SKY or to one of the competitors, and the competitor comes in and without really giving us an opportunity to pitch Sky, they go the competitor route?
Maybe this is a price issue, maybe it is because one of the competitors has a fantastic working paper system and the firm thinks they are getting the same quality.
We have had a few of these situations where clients have changed. The change is a huge effort with much trauma, therefore its really difficult to come back. Of course, the people within who made or helped make the decision have to protect their decision that they made! They do this by hanging in there at all costs. Sometimes they leave the firms because they can’t take the pressure!
We had the situation where a relatively small 2 partner practice changed because of the pressure of the audit manager. The Partners called us in May 2017 and said "we cannot take this anymore, we are really struggling with our Debtors", but in fact the whole system and we want to come back to your software.  Of course, we allowed them to come back and catch up as they started again at the 1st January 2017 redoing their work from the time they changed because they could not rely on their current data.
These are the kind of things they told us they encountered.

1. Data conversion is traumatic and took a long time to sort out.
2. The Debtors is not comparable to any South African Debtors system.  You cannot process a refund.  You can’t do write offs. Invoicing is a nightmare and very slow.
3. It is definitely not integrated. They tell you that it is integrated but it is definitely not integrated and there are numerous errors with the so called integration connections.
4. They can’t do quick fixes so if you find a bug you live with it.
5. When you do an update you have got to update each program type separately.  Secretarial, Time, Tax etc individually on each terminal and this takes hours.
6. They do not have a Cloud system, other than one module but claim they will soon have more. They do have a Secretarial Cloud and then off course they have a Time Cloud which is international and not developed by the same developers so where is the integration!
7. The reports are sub-standard.  The reports in no way compare to the reports that we have in ProSeries. We were told that the tax system is vastly inferior to Tax Manager.
8. There are many other issues which I won’t bother to mention.
9. Oh yes and the person who forced the decision left the firm.

So please if you find yourself in this situation do your homework before you make these kind of decisions, really have a good look.
I am not saying that we are perfect, but we certainly are now reaching a point where we are closer to perfection than anyone else.  Listen to what our clients say.  Have a look on www.accfinsoftware.com for the webinar with Andrew Alt of Charteris Barnes.

Dear Client
 
You all know that over the years I have been preaching to tax practices on how to reduce their risk exposure. 
 
We have introduced something new for both ProSeries and SKY users in regard to the Tax Mandate.  It is an e-Filing term and condition that you get a signed mandate from every tax client that you do work for.
 
The mandate to use may be our mandate which you are welcome to change if you want to.
This is going to work with our digital signature system. Your client will be able to sign the mandate electronically and the signed document with the signature will be returned to your system electronically.
 
Please indicate your interest by responding to this e-mail and just say YES I am interested and we will get back to you with the set up.
 
Please note that this is a precursor to the provisional tax run in August 2017. This system will save you many hours of labour.
 
To find out more about digital signatures please click on the link below.
 
http://www.accfinsoftware.com/digital-signatures.html
 
You will find a short video and a webinar on the legal situation of digital signatures.
 
Regards
Mark