The Banking Association South Africa recently announced that only R17.84bn of the R200bn Covid-19 Loan Guarantee Scheme for small businesses had been approved by banks. The scheme received 48 366 applications of which 27% were approved by the banks...
South African households’ real net wealth increased by just over R1 trillion since the first quarter of 2020, according to the latest Momentum-Unisa Household Wealth report. Between the start of the second quarter of 2020 (Q2 2020) and the end of...
Ten ways the Budget affects your personal finances: Your tax rate is not going up! In fact, thanks to an above-inflation adjustment to the tax brackets, personal income tax payers receive back R2.2bn. The R40bn tax measures that were proposed in...
Some of your relatives and loved ones may be getting on in years and may not be as careful with their finances and cards as they were before. Angelique Ruzicka has some suggestions for things you can do to help protect them from scams. Sadly, there...
Electricity is a major household expense for everyone. This will only worsen in April this year when we expect to see an overall 15% increase in the Eskom standard rate. Trying to understand what the “average” household spends in South African is...
By Jean du Toit, Tax Consulting SA. President Cyril Ramaphosa has given effect to the 2020 tax proposals by signing three tax Acts into law. On 15 January 2021, the President gave his assent to the Rates and Monetary Amounts and Amendment of...
By Ruan van Jaarsveld, Manager at Hobbs Sinclair Advisory. Many South Africans have recently found themselves feeling the need to venture into business outside of the formal, corporate framework. Reasons for this vary, from being retrenched from a...
With the planned re-opening of schools some time over the course of January, parents are bracing themselves for the annual grudge purchase of back-to-school essentials. These including stationery, textbooks, sports kit and other required equipment....
The law makes no distinction between voluntary retrenchment and forced retrenchment. This means that the same benefits apply whether you accepted the package voluntarily or were forced to take it. These benefits include a tax exemption of up to...
If you were unpleasantly surprised by the tax bill on your 13th cheque, change the way you structure your salary package so you lessen the tax impact. According to Jetro Malapane, member of the Executive Committee of the South African Payroll...
It’s that time of year when we all make our New Year’s resolutions. The secret to a successful resolution is to keep it simple and to break it down to something manageable. For example, don’t’ say “I am going to be debt free.” Rather select one debt that you are...
South African small business owners are a resilient bunch: 86% of those recently surveyed by Retail Capital said that their business will survive the pandemic. This despite the majority not receiving relief from their landlords or financial institutions during...
If you do just one thing this festive season, plan for those 40 days to the next paycheque. Right now, the best thing you can do for your financial health is to plan for December and January. In most cases when people write to us with financial difficulties it is...
Absa recently announced that an employee had “unlawfully made selected customer data available to a small number of external parties.” According to Absa, the data leak relates to a small portion of Absa South Africa’s customer base, and while it included personal...
If you are looking to buy or sell a property, or even just want to find out what the properties in your area are worth, Lightstone Property has introduced an easy, low-cost valuation service for individuals. In the past, the company provided the service to estate...
There are many myths and misconceptions about payroll tax in South Africa that simply won't go away. Let's look at a few of them and what the tax and labour laws actually say. Myth 1: Salary is taxed differently from overtime or commission No matter whether your...
With criminals constantly trying to access our personal information, we should behave as if our identity is compromised and act accordingly. In late August, credit bureau Experian notified the public that there had been an incident involving a fraudulent data inquiry...
Credit life payouts and payment holidays are on the cards. But it will only be for those who are directly impacted by the lockdown, and will come with Ts and Cs. While we are expecting more announcements from the banks, they have all indicated that they will be...
As salaries struggle to keep up with inflation, and the economy in general continues to deteriorate, many middle- and higher-income earners are now relying more heavily on unsecured loans to maintain their lifestyles. As a result, many more South Africans are now...
Higher-income earners are tapping into unsecured loans to maintain their lifestyles as their salaries fail to keep up with inflation. Debt Counselling firm DebtBusters recently released their quarterly debt report for the last quarter of 2019, and the figures were...