Employers have an obligation to withhold employees’ tax and pay it over to SARS. They are also required to retain records of all the taxes withheld and issue IRP5 certificates.

Personal income tax is the largest contributor of revenue to SARS. It is therefore important to ensure that the institution complies with the tax legislation and that all payroll records are accurate and complete. Failure to do that may result in heavy penalties and interest.

Employers are easy targets for additional revenue collection since the administration relating to payroll is so onerous and mistakes due to human or programming errors may occur. It is also an easy way for SARS to access additional revenue from several taxpayers.

In addition, given the nature of the employee base at most institutions of higher learning, where there is a large component of contracted or non-fulltime employees.

There are additional risks that need to be assessed.

There are additional risks that need to be assessed.

Payroll data
Is your payroll data accurate and complete for the calculation of employees’ tax?
Non-full-time employees or contracts
Have you assessed all your non-full-time employees or contracts in compliance with the tax legislation for employees’ tax purposes?
Payments made to your employees
Have you taken into account all the payments made to your employees including those paid outside the payroll system?