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UIF TERS Extended Once More and Certain Tax Relief Measures Have Come to an End

On 7 September 2020, the Minister of the Department of Employment and Labour announced that the Temporary Employee/Employer Relief Scheme (“TERS”), operated by the Unemployment Insurance Fund (“UIF”), will once again be extended.

The extension, starting 16 August 2020, shall remain in operation as long as the declaration of the COVID-19 State of National Disaster, in terms of the National Disaster Management Act No.57 of 2002, subsists or until withdrawn, whichever comes first.

In addition, the Minister has communicated that the UIF TERS applications for the respective claim periods of March up to July 2020 will be accepted by the online system until 15 September 2020. The applications for the July/August claim period will be accepted until 30 October 2020 (previously 15 September).

The Government Notice communicating the above can be found HERE.

This extension comes after the suspension of key management at the UIF, including the Commissioner Teboho Maruping, following the release of a report by the Auditor General stating that certain control weaknesses have been found in the payment of UIF TERS benefits.

Certain COVID-19 tax relief measures that have ended

The Skills Development Levy (“SDL”) payment holiday that has been in effect from 1 May 2020 up to 31 August 2020, has come to an end with the submission of the EMP201 by 7 September 2020.

We remind our readers that SDL will once again be payable as per normal legislation from 1 September 2020 (i.e. the first EMP201 return with SDL will be due by 7 October 2020).

The PAYE deferral relief applied to date must be repaid in six equal monthly instalments. A final amendment to the PAYE deferral legislation was made at the end of August, with very few taxpayers being able to respond in time. This amendment allowed for the PAYE deferral to apply for the month of August as well (previously the deferral stopped on 31 July 2020).

The legislation currently reflects that the PAYE deferral value must be repaid in six equal instalments as follows:

  • September 2020 – payment due by 7 October 2020;
  • October 2020 – payment is due by 6 November 2020 (last business day before the 7th);
  • November 2020 – payment is due by 7 December 2020;
  • December 2020 – payment is due by 7 January 2021;
  • January 2021 – payment is due by 5 February 2021; and
  • February 2021 – payment is due by 5 March 2021.

For our readers that did not apply PAYE Deferral relief for the month of August and paid their first instalment on the deferred value by 7 September, we suggest continuing with this payment plan and making the final instalment by 5 February 2021 (as opposed to the current deadline date of 5 March 2021).

Refer HERE for more information on the PAYE relief measure and payment details.