Summary
This document incorporates the revisions to these laws, as announced by National Treasury on 16 February 2016.
The Taxation Laws Amendment Act, 2015 has passed some of Government’s retirement reform proposals into law. The new rules are designed to harmonise the tax treatment for all types of retirement funds (ie pension, provident and retirement annuity funds). The new rules will take effect on 1 March 2016.
In summary, from 1 March 2016, the deduction cap for retirement fund contributions increases to 27.5% of the greater of remuneration or taxable income. This rate applies to the aggregate of contributions made to an individual’s pension, provident and RA funds. Presently, different contribution caps and deduction bases apply to the three types of funds.
The annual deduction cap is R350,000 (including the cost of risk benefits). Individuals who contribute more in any one year can carry forward any unclaimed amount and deduct these from tax in subsequent years, subject to the deduction limits in those years. Any unclaimed contributions are returned untaxed at withdrawal or retirement.
Only the employee may claim contributions (both in respect of the employer and the employee contributions). The employee’s PAYE deduction must be adjusted to reflect these contributions. If the employer makes the contribution, this must be neutralized by way of a fringe benefits tax charge levied on the employee.
These reforms initially included a provision that provident fund members must, from 1 March 2016, use two-thirds of their fund benefit to purchase an annuity at RETIREMENT. The implementation of this requirement was postponed to at least 1 March 2018. At that point this law may either become effective, or be scrapped. If scrapped, National Treasury will revisit the tax deduction available on contributions to provident fund (with a view to lowering these).