Derek Springett, Author at Harbour & Associates

The first question is, of course, what do you mean by “wealthy”? I like my definition of being “reasonably wealthy” as “having enough passive income to be able to retire”. For us average people, there is, in my view, only one way to achieve this other than by gambling successfully and that is by investing in property. Why property? Because you can buy a R900 000 property with R90 000. You can’t buy R900 000 worth of listed shares except with R900 000. You will need about R12m to 14m invested in rental earning property…

SARS is getting more and more aggressive. In early May they started hitting trusts with penallties for non-submission of annual tax returns. Then, on 6 May, we received correspondence from SARS advising that they intended to auto assess a 2nd Provisional Tax return for one of our inactive clients if it was not submitted within 10 business days. Our Customer Relations Manager (CRM) system is designed to keep our active clients informed of upcoming returns, but please be aware that we cannot accept responsibility for failing to inform you of an up-coming return because our notifications are sent…

Last month I talked about moving a service company into a trust. If the company owns assets, such as plant and machinery, then it gets a bit more complicated. The principal is basically the same. You register a new company and issue the shares to your trust. Then you start invoicing from the new company (increasing its value), but continue paying the bulk of the expenses in the old one (reducing its value). The old company rents the assets to the new company, and here you can play around with rentals to balance the profits and expenses…

I registered a new company and shortly thereafter received this email from SARS Ah! That is clearly the Tax number of the new company. Great service! double click on the pdf and guess what? State secret! It would have been really funny if the password had been the tax number, but I looked up the tax number at CIPC and tried it, but no, not the tax number, not the company number, not my ID.

The shares in your company cost you R120 or R100 depending on whether we registered the company or someone else did and they are now worth R1m. Incidentally, the reason we issue 120 shares is that 120 can be divided by 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6, so you can have any of those numbers of equal shareholders. You now want the company to be owned by your trust. You can donate it and pay 20% Donations Tax on R1m – R150K (the Annual allowance) or sell it and pay up to 18% CGT on R1m – R120 (the…

My AI generated weekly update advises me that from 4th May 2026, SARS will be imposing monthly administrative penalties on trusts that fail to submit their annual tax returns. This was gazetted on 27 March and specifically confirms that, as is the case with companies, it will apply even when the trust earns zero income. The probability is that the penalties will be R250 per month for every outstanding tax return. Since posting this article, we have received, on 5th May, our first notification of the imposition of R250 per return for a trust. So, it’s…

I asked three AIs and the answer was consistently no. There is no mechanism enabling you to resign from the above appointments without a replacement. SARS also advised on numerous occasions that it cannot be done. They were all wrong! I was on the spot because of all the shelf companies that we sell. I have to be the Registered Representative in order to maintain the tax affairs up until we sell the company. Then I’ve had to rely on the client to undertake the onorous task of appointing themselves in my place, which they frequently…

Your company ceased trading in, say, September 2025. What expenses between October 2025 and February 2026 are deductible for tax? We first have to go to s11(a) of the Income Tax Act which states that an expense is deductible if it is actually incurred in the production of income, provided it is not of a capital nature. There was no income after September 2025, so are all expenses thereafter disallowed? My opinion (and that’s all it is) is that certain expenses were required as a result of the production of income and would therefore be deductible.

You’ve lent money to your trust’s company, perhaps for a deposit on a property purchase or perhaps from selling your property to the trust when it didn’t have the money to pay you. Either way s7C of the Income Tax Act kicks in. In simple terms, it says that you must charge interest at least at the official rate (which is the repo rate plus 1%). If you don’t, then the shortfall that you didn’t charge is deemed to be a donation and that is subject to Donations Tax at 20%. Now it gets interesting.

This is one of the most frequently asked questions during my many Teams meetings. So, here’s the answer. I’ll talk as if you only have one property to deal with. You have to choose between donating the property or selling it. There’s no other way. If you donate it, you’re in for 20% Donations Tax. The only advantage is that you will have moved its value out of your estate and away from your creditors. You can’t do this to escape creditors whom you know are already proceeding against you. Your alternative is to sell…

This is the first time that I have seen SARS getting a judgement for Administrative Penalties. What does it mean? Well, the judgement was against a company, and that company has already been deregistered at CIPC. It was always dormant, so it owns no assets that the sheriff can seize. In other words, the judgment can have no effect whatsoever on the company. Can other assets be seized? No, not those of the shareholder, the director, the Public Officer nor the Tax Representative, none of whom were mentioned in the judgement. I asked Perplexity.AI whether…

The saga continues. Last August we restored a company from “Final AR deregistration” at CIPC. It went into “In Restoration” mode and we submitted all outstanding returns. Then it correctly went into “In Business”. A month later, we received an email from CIPC warning us that, because the outstanding returns had not been submitted, the reinstatement had not been completed and it was about to be returned to Final AR deregistration. We ignored the email and the company remained “In business”. In March 2026, we received another email from CIPC advising us that, as…

I struggled with this for months, getting all sorts of solutions from AI and Google. Some were complicated but worked, others didn’t work. So, here’s the simple solution that works every time. Click on the pageHold down the <Alt> key then tap <Shift> Up pops a window Hit Maximize and your problem is solved!…

The revised VAT compulsory registration means that if your company turnover is less than R2,3m you could consider deregistering it for VAT. What are the pros and cons? In favour of deregistration You only need to get the bookkeeping done annually. That saves a lot of fees. You don’t have to pay someone to submit the VAT returns. If most of your customers aren’t VAT registered, they will be no worse off if you charge them the same as when you were VAT registered. If you don’t have much Input VAT claim, this will increase your profits…

There were a lot of changes to the tax rates in this budget and there’s plenty of reporting on the subject. For my followers, these are the important ones that you may have missed. Primary residence exclusion for CGT is now R3m from R2m Annual Donations Tax allowance R150 000 from R100 000 Voluntary VAT registration from R120 000 (or average R10 000 per month over at least two months) previously R50 000 (from average R4 200 per month over at least two months) Compulsory VAT registration now R2,3 m from R1m…

Let’s say you want to hide Field D if (Field A = Yes AND Field B = No) OR Field C < 2 Gravity Forms doesn’t let you do this in a simple way. Here’s how I did it. I am assuming you are familiar with what Gravity does allow you to do. If not, then book a free Teams meeting with me on https://harbourassociates.youcanbook.me/ and I will share screens and talk you through the detail. The trick is to assign values to each of the answers in fields A and B, No being 0 and…

Yes, you can, but for all tax purposes, it will be deemed to have been sold at market value. So, why mess with the price? You will probably be selling to a company owned by the trust. If the company does not have the money to pay for the property then it will owe you the money and s7C of the Income Tax Act says that you must charge interest at least at the official rate. That interest is taxable in your hands. So, the lower the actual selling price, the lower the Conveyancer’s fees and…

I’ve been worrying this bone since 2018. I have published all the right answers both in my articles and in my books, but I focused more on the rental of the accommodation rather than on the rental of the building. So here goes. We assume that your turnover exceeds R1m. If you rent a residential accommodation building directly to a tenant or tenants without services, you are renting residential accommodation and it is exempt from VAT. Example1. Your own a house and rent it out on a 1-year lease. Example 2. You own a student accommodation…

If the basic amount on a 2nd Provisional tax return is zero and I submit a nil provisional, is there a penalty for understatement if my actual taxable income is less then R1m? That’s the question that I put to ChatBot, Gemini and Perplexity (my favourite). As always, I asked them for the specific reference sections of the relevant Acts from which they drew their conclusion. Answers: Chatbot was so way off track that what it said and the references that it gave are not worth a mention. Gemini, a well argued resounding Yes, you…

I am occasionally credited with having given advice that I have completely forgotten, but which has stuck in someone’s mind and significantly influenced their approach to life or life’s problems. This one is from my daughter, Claire. You would like a discount? Ask. You need help? Ask. You need an extension of credit? Ask Because if you don’t then the answer automatically defaults to “No”.

Author: Derek Springett

How can I become wealthy?

Auto-assessment on non-submission of Provisional Tax Returns

How can I move my production asset owning company into a trust without paying CGT?

SARS’ insanity prevails!

How can I move my service company into my trust without paying CGT?

SARS imposing Administrative Penalties on trusts

Can I resign as the Registered Representative and Public Officer of a company without a replacement?

What expenses are tax deductible after I ceased trading?

Interest on loans to a trust

How do I move my properties into a trust?

SARS gets judgement for Admin Penalties

What if CIPC advises me that my company is back in Final de-registration? Don’t panic – they still don’t know what they are doing!

My pdf or Excel file is off screen at the top, so I can’t shrink it or drag it. What do I do?

Should I deregister my company for VAT?

Snippets from the 2026 Budget

Complex Boolean formulae in Gravity Forms

Can I sell a property to my trust below market price?

Is the rental of a residential accomodation building subject to VAT?

Don’t trust your favourite AI!

If you don’t ask, the answer is No.