ETI Refresher and Employer Reconciliation Recap

The calendar’s page has been turned over to November, which means that for the vast majority of you, the interim filing season is done and dusted! Our blog post today contains a refresher on ETI balances and the effect of tax periods on them, in addition to a polite reminder for any clients still to complete their filing.

Carrying Forward Unutilised ETI 

You may remember that as part of the Government’s response to COVID-19, ETI was adapted to increase both the number of eligible employees and the amount claimable per employee. Due to the scheme’s increased uptake, we thought it would be helpful to give you a brief refresher of some important points.

Under the rules that govern ETI, if your total ETI for a certain month is greater than your overall PAYE liability, you can have the balance rolled over to the following month(s). This roll-over is only allowed within any one six (6) month tax period – March to August and September to February, after which any unutilised ETI which you haven’t claimed as a payout from SARS is forfeited. As the extended COVID-19 ETI ran for the months of April to July 2020, these all fell within the last bi-annual filing period of March to August. Therefore, from August the usual roll over rules applied, meaning that any unutilised ETI is not rolled over, but should rather be claimed as a refund from SARS.

SARS has stated that despite the challenging circumstances brought about by the pandemic, these rules stand and that any ETI balance that you may have held will not be extended beyond the 31 August cut-off point. Despite this support measure no longer being available, we hope that the lesser restrictions means your business continues to regain a sure footing.

We’d also like to take this opportunity to remind you of the importance of correct and timely ETI submissions and claims, as the penalties for non-compliance can be severe. For more details, check out our ETI help pages.

Filing Reminder

Having gotten through another interim filing period, we hope that our continued endeavours to make payroll a breeze has made this filing season the smoothest yet for you! If you have not yet filed your EMP501 and IRP5 / IT3(a)s, the deadline was the end of October. We urge you to complete your filing as soon as possible, as the sooner you do this, the lesser the prospective penalty for late submission. If your EMP501 remains outstanding for several months, you could face a maximum penalty of 10% of the total amount of your employee’s tax deducted for the 2021 tax year.

If we can assist at all, please reach out to our support team who will assist you as best they can in resolving any issues you are facing with submission.

We hope that this information has proved useful to you. 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, why not check out our website? Or, better yet, try out our service for free with our 30-day trial, get acquainted with our user-friendly service by reading our getting started page, or take our free online course. 

Keep well and stay safe.

Team SimplePay