End of Week Blog: 14 August
As we approach the halfway point for the month of August, today’s blog post will be looking at recent COVID-19 TERS announcements, updates from SARS and a recap of some of our recent blog posts.
TERS Update
On 12 August, the Department of Employment and Labour announced that the opening of TERS applications for July / August will be on Monday, 17 August. This followed the Minister signing a Directive on the application of TERS for these months.
The Directive states that for the July / August period, applications can be made for employees whose employers are:
- not permitted to commence operations under the Disaster Management Regulations;
- unable to make alternative arrangements for vulnerable works, (e.g. working from home or taking special measures); or are
- unable to make use of their employees’ services, due to restrictions to the permitted active workforce, caused by compliance with Directions and Regulations, such as staggered working.
The application process should be the same as for the previous months, with proof of disbursements to employees being required if you are selected to act as a conduit, in addition to the bank verification process.
To read the Directive, its explanatory memorandum, or an updated set of FAQ’s for the upcoming application process, you can visit this Department of Labour webpage.
Reminder: Employer Interim Reconciliation Submission
The interim employer reconciliation period which runs between March and August ends this month, meaning that you will need to submit your EMP 501 and IRP5s / IT3(a)s next month. The submission period opens on 15 September and concludes on 31 October.
e@syfile BETA Testing
SARS is currently running final tests on the latest version of e@syfile in time for Employer Interim Reconciliation in mid-September.
Enhancements will include:
- New source codes on the IRP5 to incorporate the legislative changes
- New letters regarding Remittance of Penalties and Interest, Notice of Non-Compliance Penalty
- Amended letters regarding excessive liability changes on the Employer Reconciliation, Employment Tax Validation, Notice of Assessment
- Amendment of PAYE dashboard
- Upgrade of the BETA Testing site
- Resubmission of rejected EMP501 reconciliation
- Time out while downloading a new version of e@syFileTM Employer
- New summary report of all certificates included in the EMP501 Reconciliation
- Synchronisation of eFiling and e@syFileTM Employer logons
We are incorporating all the new codes and tax rules to our system, meaning that come September you can automatically generate the IRP5s / IT3(a)s and EMP501 needed, and submit them to SARS. Easy as that!
NEW FEATURES AND UPDATES
PAYE vs Income Tax
We have changed the labelling of Pay As You Earn (PAYE) on payslips from “Tax” to “Tax (PAYE)”. If you’d like to know more about our reasons for us doing this and the differences between the various forms of income tax, take a read through our blog.
Family Responsibility Leave
We have updated the name of Compassionate Leave to Family Responsibility Leave on SimplePay, to align our site more strongly with the Basic Conditions of Employment Act. You can read more about this in our blog post.
Self-Service Employee Claim Request
We’ve expanded our self-service features to allow employees to claim expenses, travel allowances and custom items of various input types.
If you’d like to opt-in for these new and expanded features, you can find out how and read more about them here.
Employee Filtering Revamp
Having had requests to switch up how you’d like to be able to filter employees on SimplePay, we’ve listened and made some changes. You can read about our newly introduced and adapted filters in our blog post from 4 August.
RECAP
Easing of Tourism Restrictions
On 30 July, we updated you on the new rules for the tourism industry under level 3 of lockdown. You can read more about these relaxations here.
Business Turnaround and Recovery Programme
The Business Turnaround and Recovery Programme is aimed at intervening to help companies in distress or decline to re-strategise and put their business back on to a profitable trajectory.
If this sounds an interesting prospect, you can read more about the eligibility criteria and how to apply in our blog post.
We hope that you have found the above information useful. If you have any questions on how the information above relates to SimplePay, please feel free to contact us at info@simplepay.co.za.
Equally, if you are not yet a client of SimplePay but would like to be, or if you’d like to know how we can take the effort out of filing and calculating payroll, get in contact with us or visit our website.
Keep well and stay safe.
Team SimplePay