South Africa: Amendment of bill on validity of withholding tax declaration documents promulgated
Clearstream Banking1 informs customers that on 30 October 2019, the National Treasury and South African Revenue Service published a proposed Tax Administration Laws Amendment Bill, that provides for tax declaration documents (Declaration of Exemption from Dividend Withholding Tax DTD (EX & RR)) to have a limited validity period of five (5) years from the date of signature. The Tax Administration Laws Amendment Bill has been promulgated.
The effective date of the amendment will be
1 July 2020
Purpose of the amendment
From 1 July 2020, the withholding tax declaration documents that customers submit to Clearstream Banking for tax relief purposes will have a limited validity period of five (5) years from the date on which they are signed, after which customers must submit new withholding tax declaration documents.
Impact on tax documents
The following rules will apply to tax documents:
- Current documents in place that were signed and submitted prior to 30 June 2015 will be end-dated on 30 June 2020. Customers will have to provide the renewed documents accordingly if they wish to continue to benefit from the relief at source procedure.
- The documents already recorded in our system provided from 1 July 2015 will have their date of validity changed from until revoked to an expiration date of five (5) years after the date of signature of the document.
- Any new documents that will be signed and submitted on 1 July 2020 or thereafter will have a five (5) year validity period calculated from date of signature.
All other requirements and forms to use remain the same as the ones described within the Market Taxation Guide – South Africa.
The templates of the forms to be provided are available on Tax Forms to use – South Africa.
Important note
It is under customer’s responsibility to take the appropriate action in order to renew the certificates accordingly.
About one month before the expiry date of any standing certificate, a reminder (Expiry Report) will be sent by post or by digital means of communication to the customer with a summary of the details of that certificate
Further information
For further information, please contact the Clearstream Banking Tax Help Desk, Clearstream Banking Client Services or your Relationship Officer.
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1. Clearstream Banking refers collectively to Clearstream Banking S.A., registered office at 42, avenue John F. Kennedy, L-1855 Luxembourg, and registered with the Luxembourg Trade and Companies Register under number B-9248, and Clearstream Banking AG (for Clearstream Banking AG customers using Creation Accounts), registered office at 61, Mergenthalerallee, 65760 Eschborn, Germany and registered in Register B of the Amtsgericht Frankfurt am Main, Germany under number HRB 7500.