zombie, Author at Harbour & Associates

We were on ISDN, but have since tried fiber, microwave fiber and LTE in different locations. Here’s what we found… Testing your upload and download speed. If you want to test speed with any of your connections Google “Speed test” and choose any of the options – they all work and are simple to use. There’s a perception that we download more than we upload, so often your download speed will be significantly higher than upload. However, if like me, you work on your office server from home via Teamviewer, they are equally important. PING speed is in ms (milliseconds)…

The classifications NPC, PBO, NGO and NPO as well as EI all refer to entities that are not intended to make profits for their shareholders, but the acronyms certainly cause a lot of confusion. Here’s what they mean and how they relate to each other. The term Non Profit Company (NPC) came with the new Companies Act of 2018. It replaced what were know as s21 companies, which were formed under section 21 of the old Act. It is a company registered with CIPC and its essential features are There must be at least three independent incorporators It must be formed…

When we supply a new company registration or a shelf company for sale, the offer frequently involves 6 months’ free bookkeeping, followed by a health check. Why the health check? Because many new companies start badly and need urgent corrective action in order to survive… Here is a classic example of why your company needs a budget: During the Christmas break, we did the books for the first six months of a specialised food supplier company. I noticed that every so often they would lend a few thousand rands to the company and…

If your company was registered before 28 February 2018, then an Annual Tax Return for the year or part year ended February 2018 is due at the end of February 2019 (assuming a February financial year end). Failure to submit it, even if the company did no trade, makes it liable for administrative penalties of R250 to R16 000 for each month that it is in arrears. If the company did trade, then an Income statement and a Balance Sheet must be submitted with the return. That means somebody has to do the bookkeeping and there are only 4 weeks…

Once you can solve “Expert” sudoku puzzles, you’re almost certainly an addict (otherwise you wouldn’t have become an expert). Then the challenge is the race against time. With this in mind, I’ve been searching for quicker ways to reach the solution and here’s what I’ve found – I’m assuming that you’re an expert already, so won’t set out the tips for solving the puzzles. These are readily available via Google. but nowhere have I found speed techniques. First is your choice of App. Find one that makes your scanning and searching quick and easy. My favourite is Sudoku – Free…

There’s a lot of confusion about the meaning of Annual Returns to CIPC, Annual Tax Returns and Annual financial Statements, so let’s try to clear this up. Annual Returns to CIPC CIPC is the Companies and Intellectual Property commission. Every company and CC must submit two Annual Returns. One confirms the Directors (of companies), Members (of CCs), auditors, company secretaries with contact details of all of these together with the Registered Office Address. The other is a Financial Accountability Statement. An annual return fee is also payable (anything from R100 to R4 000). The return is due from the anniverary…

You are starting a new business. Presumably you are serious about this and want the company to succeed. You see that FNB will register a company for free, or, whilst most websites offer companies for around R2 000 (with varying free extras), some websites offer them at ridiculouosly low prices. Hey! You might save yourself R1 000! Really? Here are some of the things that can go wrong… and probably will if you buy a cheap shelf company. Why you shouldn’t even consider registering a cheap shelf company online: The company gets registered with no name and ends up being…

Some of our competitors sell at significantly lower prices than us, whilst others have taken our prices as their benchmark. We needed to understand whether our product is price sensitive and if so, to what extent. That would enable us to decide whether to sell a bare bones product at the lowest price that we would be interested in, or whether to continue selling a product rich in extras, but at a higher price. You might have the same problem, so this is how we tackled it. Firstly, we decided on our lowest price. In our case, we could take…

Dear Cyril, There’s so much wrong with South Africa, you can’t possibly know where to start. There’s only one way out of your dilemma. You need to learn the technique of Dreaming Dreams. Here, I’ll teach you – But let’s just have a little chat first, to set the scene… If you try to prioritise your actions, you’ll find yourself trying to put out one fire while something else has to be left to burn. But so many of these fires are devastating and have to be tackled immediately. And how will you ever know whether…

So many of you have companies that are completely dormant. From 7 December 2018, if you have not submitted their company tax returns you can get hit with R250 per month or more administrative penalties! This will go back to 2009 and subsequent years. The adminitstrative penalties are actually R250 to R16 000 per month depending upon taxable income or assessed loss, so we can safely assume that the R250 will apply to dormant companies only as SARS specifically mentions that dormant companies must also submit returns. They first have to issue a final demand, but since they can post…

Occasionally either my wife, Helen, or I come up with a cure for an ailment that is not mentioned anywhere on Google. It’s just our bodies telling us what they need. Here are a few examples. Itchy bites This is one from Helen. Sure, you can use an anti-hystamine cream, and they often help, but how about blowing hot air onto the bite with your (or your wife’s) hairdryer? That’s what she does and it works like a charm! Scabby hands At my age, it is almost a given that I will develop scabby patches on the backs of my…

If A gets bigger whenever B gets bigger, did A cause B or did B cause A? This correlation is so often misinterpreted that it probably led to the expression “Lies, damned lies and statistics” Correlation can be positive (both things increase together) or negative (when one goes up, the other goes down) – Typical positive correlation would be an observation that the more laughter in a family, the better the kids do at school. Conclusion – laugh more with your family and that will improve your kids’ marks! An example of negative correlation would be finding that the more…

The Companies Act of 2008 had one little requirement that everybody ignored. Now CIPC is coming down hard! The Act s33 and the Regulation 30 say that if you are not required to submit your Annual Financial Statements with your Annual Return to CIPC then you must submit a CoR30.2 Financial Accountability Supplement simultaneously with you Annual Return. You have to submit these returns during the month following every anniversary of the date of registration of your company, even if it has never traded. Failure to do so will lead to de-registration and, once de-registered,…

I had a 4 1/2 hour meeting with a guy who had about R50m investments and was worried that taxes on death would wipe out the investment income that he hoped would support his wife and daughters upon his death. He had received all sorts of investment advice and simply couldn’t get his head around it until he found us through an internet search. What he didn’t realise was that he did not have any investments! As part of this wealth management exercise, the first thing we had to do was list his assets : A residence that a daughter…

You may have read my article on Mind Power and Essential Tremors in which I describe how, about 2 years ago, I cured my uncontrollable shaking hands using my mindpower techniques and thereby saved my medical aid the R1m that they had pre-authorised for a brain operation. I’ve now decided to cure my high frequency deafness the same way. It’s a well known fact that if you go public on something you intend to achieve, you increase your chances of success dramatically. So I’ve decided to challenge myself publicly to self cure my high frequency deafness (let’s call…

I recently had a call about whether student accomodation is a VATable supply. This is an important consideration if you are planning to buy a property for that purpose. I could not answer off the top of my head, so had to do some research and surprise, surprise, there is no simple answer. The South African Institute of Chartered Accountants discuss the matter in some detail, but I have to confess, that after studying the article several times, I still don’t know the answer to the question. In essence, the question is whether the agreement is…

I spend a lot of time solving people’s problems. They come and see me with a sitution which has been keeping them awake at nights and in almost every case, they go away with a solution. How? A typical question would be “Can a company be a beneficary of my trust and how do I put my assets into it?” Now, the first thing to realise is that this question is not the problem, it is related to what the client thinks may be the solution of their problem. So I don’t even answer questions like that. My approach is…

We recently spent a week in Cape Town. The question was how to get from our apartment in Rosebank to O.R Tambo International. I was excited to see that the Gautrain bus passed right in front of our apartment. Wow! Life had suddenly become so much easier. So, a few days before our departure I set about planning how we would get to O.R Tambo International Airport by Gautrain. It ended up like this: Gautrain bus from our door to Rosebank Gautrain station Wait for…

As you know I am crazy about the Japanese abacus (soroban). I have to undergo speed tests to progress from one level to the next. At yesterday’s International Soroban Competition, where I was the guest speaker, I learned that, at age 75, I have progressed from elementary to the 7th Kyu (it goes elementary, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6 …) faster than any past student of Abacus Maths. Here’s how I monitor and motivate my progress while practicing. It’s called a scattergram. I plot my time on the horizontal axis and my…

What is it about a winner that makes them win? First up, they decide that they were going to win. You will never win by chance (unless you are gambling, but that’s not the kind of winning that I’m talking about). Next, they figure out how they are going to win. Sometimes, it’s just practice, practice, practice, but not always. There needs to be a clear plan of how to come out best. Once embarking on the winner training, they monitor their progress and carefully analyse anything that goes wrong along the way. They learn from it and move…

Author: zombie

ISDN, fiber, microwave fibre and LTE (5G)

Non Profit Companies NPC, Non Government Organisation NGO, Public Benefit Organisations PBO, Non Profit Organisations NPO

Why your new business needs a budget

Your company has two tax returns due at the end of February

In search of the quickest way to solve Sudoku puzzles

Annual Tax Returns, Annual CIPC Returns and Annual Financial Statements

What can go wrong if you buy a cheap shelf company or company registration?

Testing price sensitivity of your product

Teaching Cyril Ramaphosa to Dream Dreams

SARS administrative penalties apply to dormant companies

Self healing ideas that work

Correlation, cause or consequence?

CIPC Annual Returns. Critical changes that influence you!

Recognise what is not an investment!

Can mind power cure high frequency deafness?

VAT on student accommodation

The art of problem solving

Gautrain vs Uber

Tests, exams and scattergrams

Winning