Greetings | Domestic Property Amnesty | VAT

[CLIVE-TRIANGLE]

The whole point of the amnesty is to allow the transfer at the original base cost, because CGT lies at the heart of the deal. I am a bit puzzled at the municipal valuation bit.
Bearing in mind this is a residential property the whole vat story is a bit puzzling too.

There are other consideration also. See SAICA's publication.

[think108]

This info is so appreciated. The SAICA article is very useful.

We have in fact the "trust owns company owns property" situation.

The company is VAT registered, because that was the requirement at the time, as I recall, in order to claim back the original transfer duty.

The SAICA article is quite clear that the transaction value will be the base cost. Which I reckon will be the cap gains valuation we commissioned when CGT came in. And this is in fact not anything like the present municipal valuation, which I and others seem to have been using in error as a base for for our VAT sums.

So my questions are: 1.How much would SARS charge me for a ruling? and
2. If we got a ruling, would it bind SARS?
3. Is there any downside to asking for a ruling - huge audits etc? Not that we have anything to hide - its just so time-consuming.

[Dave A]

1.How much would SARS charge me for a ruling?

If you request a tax directive, there's no charge.

2. If we got a ruling, would it bind SARS?

Yes. Unless they change their mind.

Or to put it another way - it woud be very unusual for SARS to change a tax directive they've issued, but it has been known to happen.

3. Is there any downside to asking for a ruling - huge audits etc? Not that we have anything to hide - its just so time-consuming.

Asking for a tax directive is not in itself an automatic audit flag.

If you don't agree with the directive, you can always appeal. But of course, now we are definitely heading into PITA territory.

[Gael H]

Hi I am facing exactly the same situation as you did. The transfer is on hold as I need to find out if we will have to repay the input tax I claimed (transfer duty) I would like o knw if you proceeded with the application for directive and what was SARS' eventual ruling.