The 1st of March 2016 brought with it a number of significant changes that will affect employees with pension, provident and retirement annuity funds. This legislation introduces a uniform tax treatment for all three of the above-mentioned funds (total taxable income deduction limited to 27.5% of income, with an annual cap of R350 000).
It also assigns retirement investments to two different categories: Defined Benefit (DB) schemes and Defined Contribution (DC) schemes. This distinction is important as it impacts the value of the fringe benefit arising from employer contributions:
- Defined Contribution: the full value of the employer contribution
- Defined Benefit: determined by means of a formula which uses a Category Factor
Employers should therefore contact their fund administrators in order to determine the nature of the fund. As a rule, all Retirement Annuity Funds will fall under the DC category with most Provident Funds doing the same. Pension funds could fall under either DC or DB. We would recommend that all employers with employees contributing to Pension or Provident Funds get in contact with the fund itself to ensure that the calculations are performed correctly. If it is a DB fund, and the fund has not issued a Contribution Certificate, employers should request this as a matter of urgency. This certificate contains pertinent information about the fund, including the Category Factor mentioned above. If applicable, the Category Factor should be entered into SimplePay when adding or updating a Pension or Provident fund item.
Our hard working code wizards have already made sure that SimplePay is fully up-to date with these new changes, and all you will need to do as a Payroll Administrator, is to input the appropriate category factor in the case of Defined Benefit funds.
As always, feel free to get in touch with our super helpful support team if you have any questions or concerns.