Summary

Demystifying the myriad of tax legislation Juta's 2014 Compendium of Tax Legislation examines the amendments to South African tax law through a new lens. All amendments in terms of the Taxation Laws Amendment Act 31 of 2013, the Tax Administration Laws Amendment Act 39 of 2013, the Employment Tax Incentive Act 26 of 2013 and the Rates and Monetary Amounts and Amendment of Revenue Laws Act 23 of 2013 are incorporated in the 2014 Compendium. In Volume 1, Juta Law editors have consolidated the tax legislation by incorporating the 'prelex' (legislation in force before the coming into operation of the substituted, amended or deleted provisions) and 'pendlex' (pending legislation that will only come into operation after 1 April 2014). The text is clearly differentiated by the use of shading to indicate the prelex and pendlex, and effective dates have also been added into the text, further enhancing the reader's understanding of the relevant changes. Because of overwhelmingly positive feedback about the usefulness of the prelex (Juta embarked on this value-adding enhancement in the 2012 edition), we continue to include the prelex not only in respect of amendments coming into operation from 1 January 2014 and later, but also in the case of any amendment coming into operation retrospectively with effect from an earlier date, for instance 1 April 2009. This means that more than one version of prelex text is sometimes created where a specific provision of, for instance, the Income Tax Act (IT Act) was amended more than once (in most cases retrospectively) in terms of legislation amending the IT Act since the 2014 Compendium. In the 2014 Compendium only the provisions of Schedule 1 to the Tax Administration Act that have not yet come into operation have been reproduced. In this regard readers are also referred to Interpretation Note 68 (Issue 2), which is found in volume 2 of the Compendium and deals with the matter of provisions of the Tax Administration Act that did not commence on 1 October 2012. Tax practitioners are therefore able to read and interpret the changes to tax laws, and to understand the impact of future legislation. In Volume 2, a table of contents - arranged by section in the Act as well as numerically - in respect of each subdivision found in the volume will assist readers in their search for specific information. The 2013 explanatory memoranda on tax bills and memoranda on the objects of tax bills can also be found in Volume 2.