One of the comments that came up in the Moving The Forum SA Forward thread was that it would be handy to have a simple guide to navigating some of the compliance complexity.

So to kick this off, here is my monthly returns routine which is non-industry specific. Hopefully, I'm not missing any

7th - PAYE, SDL and UIF
25th - VAT
Now if the 7th (or 25th) falls on a Saturday, Sunday or public holiday, I actually need to get them in by the last ordinary working day before the 7th. Please note that a Saturday does not count as an ordinary working day. I'll give a story about that later. (See. Lot's of mistakes/experience here)

Now let's run through the details on each to see whether you need to worry about them and the easiest way to get them done:

PAYE - Pay As You Earn.
Your business only needs to register if you employ someone and their salary is high enough to be taxable. In the 2007 tax year this tax threshold was R40 000.00 per year. This year, the 2008 tax year, the threshold is R43 000.00 per year (or R3 583.33 per month). So if you don't employ anyone who earns more than this, you don't need to register for PAYE.

The easiest way to file the return (a form called the EMP201) and make payment is through SARS eFiling. You can make the return earlier than the last available day and set the payment date for the last available day - the 7th of each month or (see comment on last working day above).

SDL - Skills Development Levy.
You business only needs to register for SDL if your annual payroll is more than R500 000.00 per annum (or R41 666.67 per month). If your annual payroll is less than R500 000.00 per month, you do not need to register for SDL and you do not make make payments.

You file and pay SDL on the same EMP201 along with PAYE. Again, SARS eFiling is the easiest way to do this.

UIF - Unemployment Insurance Fund
Your business only needs to register with UIF if you employ someone who works for you more than 24 hours a month. If you do not employ someone for more than 24 hours per month, you do not need to register for UIF.

You can file and pay UIF on the EMP201 along with PAYE. But there is one additional step. Every month you need to submit another form, the UI19. This details the leviable salary of every employee. This is best done using UIF uFiling.

*yawn* Time to sleep. More on this tomorrow. Once we've got all the details cooked, I'll see about setting it up in some sort of a table.