Most employers are aware that a travel allowance may be granted to an employee where it is anticipated that the employee will be required to undertake business travel by virtue of the duties of his/her employment and that a travel allowance should not be merely used as a mechanism to reduce an employee’s employees’ tax (“PAYE”) liability ...
VAT vendors who make taxable supplies of goods or services are obliged to issue tax invoices to the recipients of such supplies within 21 days of having made such a supply. A valid tax invoice is of utmost importance because without such a document a vendor, being the recipient of a supply, is not entitled to claim any input tax deductions in respect of goods or services acquired in the course or furtherance of making taxable supplies ...
It has a long been a principle of company law that the debts of a company are not the debts of its shareholders. It may be a surprise to some that this principle does not apply to certain tax debts thanks to section 181 of the Tax Administration Act No.28 of 2011 (“section 181”). This section allows shareholders to be held jointly or individually liable for the tax debts of their company. At first glance it seems unfair to punish those who do not manage the day-to-day running of a company ...
On May 7, the Fourth Circuit held that the Supreme Court’s decision in Janus Capital Group, Inc. v. First Derivative Traders, 131 S. Ct. 2296 (2011), did not apply in the context of a criminal prosecution for a violation of Rule 10b-5. See Prousalis v. Moore, No. 13-6814, 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 8584 (May 7, 2014) ...
Under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (the “FCPA”), it is unlawful for companies to bribe or make corrupt payments to officials of foreign governments or of any “instrumentality” thereof. However, what entities are included as instrumentalities of a foreign government is not defined in the FCPA and there has been intense disagreement over the breadth of the term ...
Many taxpayers are generally aware that there is a prescription provision contained in our tax law. However it is not always understood that the prescription provisions apply only if certain statutory requirements are met. In this regard it is not uncommon for SARS to assess taxpayers beyond the prescription period of three years ...
On 21 February 2014 the Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters, (‘the Convention’) as amended, by the provisions of the Protocol amending the Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters which entered into force on 1 June 2011 was published in the Government Gazette. The Convention was approved by Parliament in terms of section 231 of the Constitution and the Convention took effect on 1 March 2014 in South Africa ...
On 24 March 2014, the Competition Tribunal (the “Tribunal”) issued its long-awaited decision in The Competition Commission and South African Breweries and Others. The original complaint against South African Breweries (“SAB”) and its Appointed Distributors” (“ADs") was lodged with the Competition Commission (the “Commission”) nearly ten years ago, referred to the Tribunal nearly seven years ago, and has been the subject of various interlocutory disputes ever since ...
A shareholder of a major public hotel corporation recently filed a derivative suit against several of the company’s officers and directors alleging they violated their fiduciary duties, wasted corporate assets, and were unjustly enriched in connection with three separate data breaches between 2008 and 2010 ...
Prompted by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit’s decision in National Association of Manufacturers, et al. v. SEC, et al. (D.C. Cir. April 14, 2014), which held a portion of the conflict minerals rule (the “Rule”) invalid on First Amendment grounds, the Division of Corporation Finance of the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) issued updated guidance on April 29, 2014 relating to upcoming Form SD filing obligations ...
Even if the parties determine that a proposed transaction is not subject to the requirements of the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act (the “HSR Act”),1 the parties should take note of the recent activities and current views of agency staff regarding investigations of non-reportable transactions. Almost 20 percent of merger investigations opened by the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) between 2009 and 2013 related to non-reportable transactions ...
Stories of trade marks becoming generic - which may have the result that trade mark registrations become vulnerable to cancellation - are rare. Yet there have been a number of examples recently. In March 2014, there was a decision of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) that dealt with a claim that a trade mark registration for Kornspitz should be cancelled because the word had become generic ...
The Industrial Property Bill that was passed on the 22nd August 2013 was accepted into Ugandan law on the 6th January 2014. This Bill brings about various changes in the law protecting inventions, creations and designs in Uganda, and is intended to support development in the private sector and promote private investment ...
The South African Revenue Service (“SARS”) has extensive powers in terms of the Tax Administration Act No. 28 of 2011 (“the TAA”). In terms of section 46(1) of the TAA, SARS may, for the purposes of the administration of a tax Act in relation to a taxpayer (“Taxpayer”), require such taxpayer or another person (“Third Party”) to submit relevant material that SARS requires within a reasonable period. SARS may require such relevant material to be submitted orally or in writing ...
The Taxation Laws Amendment Act, 31 of 2013 (the “TLAA”) introduced with effect from 1 April 2014, a new section 8F into the Income Tax Act, 58 of 1962 (the “Act”) in order to reduce the opportunity for the creation of equity instruments that are artificially disguised as debt instruments (“hybrid debt instruments”) ...
The Taxation Laws Amendment Act, No 31 of 2013 introduced amendments to the VAT registration provisions contained in the Value-Added Tax Act 89 of 1991 (“the VAT Act”), aimed primarily at streamlining the VAT registration process. These amendments came into force on 1 April 2014 ...
Clients unfamiliar with patent prosecution are often surprised to learn that few patent applications receive a first-action allowance, or FAA. There are even rankings of law firms that receive the most FAAs each year. But what does an FAA signify? Is it a cause to celebrate, or to conduct a post-mortem? The answer is, of course, “it depends ...
The D.C. Circuit recently expanded the scope of the False Claims Act’s first-to-file defense. See United States ex rel. Shea v. Cellco Partnership, __ F.3d __, 2014 WL 1294687 (D.C. Cir. April 11, 2014). The court concluded that this defense – which bars FCA suits based on facts related to a “pending action” – applies even after the first action is dismissed ...
Although a federal court recently ruled that the United States Federal Trade Commission (the “FTC”) has the authority to regulate data security practices, a clinical testing laboratory is arguing that the FTC’s regulatory authority does not extend to entities covered by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (“HIPAA”) ...
On March 28 2014 Law 642/2013 - a milestone of the government's anti-corporate raider policy - entered into force. Revival of the bill, which had previously gathered dust in parliamentary committees for several years, was a response to numerous calls from the international community to take measures to counter illegal takeovers and acquisitions of businesses ...
On 7th March 2014 the Supreme Court of Appeal delivered judgment in the as yet unreported case of Commissioner for the South African Revenue Service v Mobile Telephone Networks Holdings (Pty) Ltd, (966/2012) [2014] ZASCA 4 (7 March 2014) which dealt with the deductibility of audit fees incurred for a dual or mixed purpose and the apportionment thereof for tax purposes in light of section 11(a) of the Income Tax Act 58 of 1962, as amended (‘the Act’) read with sections 23(f) and 23(g) of the A
Launching a market inquiry into a certain, seemingly problematic sector of the South African economy is not a new modus operandi for the South African Competition Commission (the “SA Commission”). In the past the SA Commission has relied upon general powers found in the Competition Act, No. 89 of 1998 (as amended) (the “Competition Act”) to conduct a market inquiry into the retail banking sector (the “Banking Inquiry”) and the supermarket sector (the “Supermarket Inquiry”) ...
Times have certainly changed. Ten years ago a tax query from a SARS assessor would find its way to the desk of the financial director or in-house tax advisor who would send it off to their auditors. The auditors would, in turn, give it to their tax department who would draft a reply to SARS and hope the matter went away. If not, an informal meeting between the financial director and tax advisor at the audit firm would usually settle the dispute ...
