Tax – Page 5 – Rust Gold

9 Apr

Where a person borrows money to purchase shares, the general rule would be that the interest paid on the funds borrowed to fund that acquisition would not be deductible for tax purposes, the reason being that the interest expense is not incurred in the production of “income”.[1]^+[2]

Similarly, interest paid cannot be said to be a cost incurred in the acquisition of an asset (such as a share) for capital gains tax purposes: by its very nature, interest is a recurring cost only incurred after acquisition of the underlying asset if funded through debt. One would therefore imagine that interest incurred on funds borrowed to acquire an asset can similarly not form part of the “base cost” of the asset for capital gains tax purposes, in other words, used to negate the capital gains tax cost which arises when the asset purchased is eventually disposed of.

Leaving aside the commercial wisdom of borrowing money to fund the acquisition of listed shares (and probably giving up assets as security in the process), the Eighth Schedule to the Income Tax Act contains a surprising exception to the general rule against non-capitalisation of interest costs for capital gains tax purposes. Paragraph 20(1)(g) determines that “… one-third of the interest as contemplated in section 24J excluding any interest contemplated in section 24O[3] on money borrowed to finance the expenditure contemplated in items (a) or (e) in respect of a share listed on a recognised exchange…” may be added to the base cost of those listed shares[4] acquired. In other words, whilst all interest incurred on such debt funding will not be taken into account to calculate the base cost of the shares, 33% of all interest incurred at least may be added to the initial cost of acquisition of the shares in determining its base cost, and eventually in calculating the capital gain realised on disposal of those shares in due course.

While interest is therefore not deductible for tax purposes on the debt used to acquire shares generally – and interest would moreover typically not rank as a cost to be taken into account for purposes of calculating the base cost of an asset for capital gains tax purposes – interest incurred on the acquisition of listed shares appears to be a definite exception.

The exception is definitely one of the lesser-known provisions in the Income Tax Act, and one which is often overlooked when listed shares are sold. Where a listed share portfolio is therefore built up over time, investors should take into account borrowing costs that may have been incurred over the years to shore up further investments in their listed investment portfolios.

[1] Section 23(f) of the Income Tax Act, 58 of 1962.

[2] “Income” being defined in section 1 of the Income Tax Act as being “gross income” less “exempt income” (such as local dividends received). Dividends are therefore not part of “income” for purposes of the Income Tax Act, and expenditure incurred to generate such exempt income, not deductible for tax purposes.

[3] Interest incurred typically linked to a corporate restructure, which would generally not find application for an ordinary investor.

[4] These listed shares may be either locally listed, or on a recognised stock exchange outside of South Africa.

This article is a general information sheet and should not be used or relied on as legal or other professional advice. No liability can be accepted for any errors or omissions nor for any loss or damage arising from reliance upon any information herein. Always contact your financial adviser for specific and detailed advice. Errors and omissions excepted (E&OE)

9 Apr

Medical scheme fees tax credit

Kirsten Van Tonder

Tax Medical scheme fees, MTC, Tax

Section 6A of the Income Tax Act[1] provides for a medical scheme fees tax credit (“MTC”), or rebate, which reduces the amount of income tax payable by a natural person (hereinafter referred to as the “taxpayer”). The MTC applies to the fees paid by the taxpayer to a registered medical scheme for his or her own benefit or for the benefit of his or her dependents.

The MTC is a fixed monthly amount which increases based on the number of dependents. For the 2017/2018 year of assessment (1 March 2017 to 28 February 2018), the credit is R303 for the taxpayer, a further R303 for the first dependent and R204 for each of the taxpayer’s additional dependents.

A “dependent” in relation to a taxpayer for purposes of section 6A is defined in the Medical Schemes Act.[2] With reference to the member of the medical scheme (here the taxpayer), it includes the spouse or partner of the taxpayer, any dependent children or other members of the taxpayer’s immediate family in respect of whom the taxpayer is liable for family care and support as well as any other person who, under the rules of the relevant medical scheme is recognised as a dependent of the taxpayer.

Contributions paid by the employer of a taxpayer are also deemed to have been paid by that taxpayer to the extent that the amount has been included in the income of that person as a taxable benefit. Contributions by an employer made after an employee has retired carries no fringe benefit value.[3] The converse is also true: where an employer pays an ex-employee’s total contributions to a medical scheme, the benefit will have no value for tax purposes and the ex-employee will not be entitled to claim the MTC for the months after retirement. Should the ex-employee, however, pay any portion of the contributions to the medical scheme during the months after retirement, he or she will be able to claim the MTC for those months. This is due thereto that in order to claim the MTC, it is merely required that fees are paid by the taxpayer. Any contribution paid by the taxpayer should therefore give rise to the MTC.

In summary, any fees paid by the taxpayer him- or herself (whether the full contribution or not), the estate or employer (provided that the amount is taken into account as a taxable benefit) are taken into account for the purposes of MTC as contributions paid by the taxpayer.

[1] No. 58 of 1962

[2] No. 131 of 1998

[3] Paragraph 12A(5)(a) of the Seventh Schedule to the Income Tax Act

9 Apr

Claiming VAT input on “pre-enterprise” expenditure

Kirsten Van Tonder

Tax SARS, Tax, VAT

In terms of section 17 of the Value-Added Tax Act, 89 of 1991, a registered VAT vendor is entitled to claim back any amounts of VAT paid on goods and services acquired or imported that will be used in the furtherance of that particular VAT enterprise. The ability to claim input VAT in this manner is however limited to VAT vendors only and the wording of section 17(1) makes it clear that input tax may only be claimed in respect of goods and services supplied to a vendor – in other words, a person that is already a registered vendor at the time that the goods or services are supplied to him/her.

Section 18(4) of the VAT Act provides relief for persons incurring expenses in the form of goods or services being supplied to them in anticipation of a VAT enterprise being set up. In terms of that provision, and notwithstanding section 17, where VAT is paid on goods or services acquired by a person and those goods or services will subsequently be supplied as part of a VAT enterprise, those goods or services on which VAT was paid historically will be deemed to have been supplied to that VAT vendor only at the stage that those goods or services are used by it to supply its own VAT supplies. In other words, the provision enables the person, who earlier would not have been able to enter a claim for input tax, to claim input tax on those goods and services supplied to him/her previously, before becoming a VAT vendor.

The relief is not only limited to goods or services supplied to the now-VAT vendor and on which VAT was paid, but also extends to second-hand goods which were previously acquired by it and is now also used in the furtherance of its VAT enterprise.

From a practical perspective, we often find in practice that SARS disallows such claims for input tax on the basis that the claiming vendor’s VAT number does not appear on the invoice which it would submit in support of its input VAT claim subsequently. This is obviously incongruous, since the VAT-claiming vendor under these circumstances could not have had its VAT number appear on the invoice of another vendor which supplied goods or services to it, simply since the vendor would not have had a VAT number at that stage, yet is perfectly eligible to submit a VAT input claim in terms of the provisions of section 18(4). We would argue that SARS’ approach is contradictory to the wording of section 20(4)(c) of the VAT Act which requires the following to appear on invoices submitted by vendors in support of an input tax claim:

“… the name, address and, where the recipient is a registered vendor, the VAT registration number of the recipient”.

Clearly, where a vendor submits an invoice to claim input VAT on “pre-enterprise” expenditure incurred, that vendor will not have been a registered vendor at that time, therefore in our view highly arguably not required to have its own VAT number on an invoice in order to support a claim for input VAT on “pre-enterprise” expenditure.

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