SARS, Reserve Bank, Tax Clearances - Help!

[RichardH]

@Heymanse. I think I will be doing it that way. Will chat to my personal banker about assisting with the process. Did you then also have to apply for the tax clearance certificate? With tax season upon us and approximately 2000 people going through SARS in East London everyday for the next while and us leaving in 20 days, I am afraid I have run out of time to do this. I contacted Cashkows and although they were very helpful, I cannot afford to pay them R18000 for assistance in getting an RA that is only 3 years old! My husband and I are 27 and 26 respectively and although we have saved for three years, we do not go over with money from selling a house etc like many others do. What we have is everything that we have worked hard and saved for and I am still stressing that we going to be beggars in Australia (although he tells me that I am melodramatic) . Anyway at the end of the day I would really like to get my money out of SA.

Thanks again to everyone for all the advice! Really appreciate it

Bonnie

I used exchange4free to get the tax clearance certificate.

My process (all done from Aus) was:

1. Contact Forex department at FNB. They opened the blocked account and sent us the MP336b.

2. Once all that was done we applied for the tax clearance from Anita at Exchange 4 free, cost R1000.

3. She sent the clearance to FNB.

4. FNB received it and completed the formal emigration process.

5. FNB sent a letter con firming we have a blocvked account and they will process the funds accordign to exchange control blah blah to our insurance company with a copy of the clearance and MP336 which has been signed and stamped by FNB (being Authorised forex dealers).

6. The insurance company are now applying for a tax directive to pay us out.

7. We get paid out to the blocked account and then transfer the funds to Aus.

Every step of the way has been paper work and lots of hoops to jump through but I guess on this forum we are all used to that.

For step 6 we had to get a certificate of tax residency here in Aus to keep SARS happy. This is similar to a SARS tax clearance except here in Aus you just write a letter and 3 weeks later you have it. No queueing in horrid SARS offices. This part may be interesting for you depending where you are resident at the time? We have been in Aus for 2 years.

The timeline with a few hiccups from step 1-6 has been 6 months.

This takes patience....

[Heymanse]

@Heymanse. I think I will be doing it that way. Will chat to my personal banker about assisting with the process. Did you then also have to apply for the tax clearance certificate? With tax season upon us and approximately 2000 people going through SARS in East London everyday for the next while and us leaving in 20 days, I am afraid I have run out of time to do this. I contacted Cashkows and although they were very helpful, I cannot afford to pay them R18000 for assistance in getting an RA that is only 3 years old! My husband and I are 27 and 26 respectively and although we have saved for three years, we do not go over with money from selling a house etc like many others do. What we have is everything that we have worked hard and saved for and I am still stressing that we going to be beggars in Australia (although he tells me that I am melodramatic) . Anyway at the end of the day I would really like to get my money out of SA.

Thanks again to everyone for all the advice! Really appreciate it

We did apply for tax clearance certificates. I remember we went to their offices quite early one morning (making sure we're the first in line so to speak). I think it took all but an hour and we had it in our hands. If my memory serves me right, we had our broker from Sanlam (who always managed our tax affairs) do our tax returns for us prior to us seeking the tax clearance certificates. I still had my RA from Sanlam and 2 cars that needed to be paid monthly because we weren't able to sell them prior to leaving South Africa. I opened the blocked Rand account because I knew there would be some bits and bobs that still needed to be taken care of while I'm in Australia, my RA and the 2 cars' payments being some of them. After about 6 months of the cars not being sold I advised our agent at the bank to stop the debit order (I figured the finance company would still be able to get their money back when the cars eventually got sold) but I couldn't afford to pay them anymore and shortly after that I closed my blocked Rand account and also contacted Sanlam and set everything in motion to have my RA paid out (which wasn't much either because I probably only had it for 7 or 8 years). Everything was done without too much fuss and hassle. Maybe the whole formal emigration thing was slightly easier for me because at the time I then have worked for the Reserve Bank's then Exchange Control Department for quite a couple of years and have dealt with many of the applications for formal emigration myself and knew more or less what the process involved and how people sometime would struggle to get money out of South Africa if they haven't formally emigrated. I didn't want to have to deal with that while I'm in another country. I'm not sure if Cashkows was around when we came over but I wouldn't have been able to afford their services too. The immigration in itself costs us a fortune and I know what I needed to do - so I did it myself. Took us a total of 2 weeks (2 visits to our bank's exchange control branch and one to the tax offices) and everything was done. I think if you take into consideration the amount of effort that we put into when we go through the process of applying for that all important visa, then applying for formal emigration is a walk in the park (in my opinion).

From what I gather you already know what the form MP336b looks like and what information is required. Why not get all the information that will be needed and do everything that is required to complete the form - in that way, you'll already save yourself some time. With regards to your tax, is there anyway you can process your tax online? Would that not speed up the process a bit?

[BonnieBecker]

Thank you all, I have chatted to my banker and I will start the process (filling in the MP336b form and getting a blocked account). I have also contacted exchange4free (thanks Richard) just waiting for a response as tax clearance certificates for emigration are no longer given to you on the spot, they take approximately 2 weeks and therefore I would like to get it all ready so that if it is not complete by the time we leave that all documents are signed and the rest can be done by representatives and my broker.

Thank you again for everyone's advice and comments.

I have printed them all and really do believe in getting advice from people who have actually been through the process.

B

[R0dney]

I am probably one of the few people on this forum that believes in formal emigration prior to leaving RSA. I did not want to go through the hassle of getting everything tied up from another country or appoint someone and pay them to do it for me. For us it was not a difficult or cumbersome process. We simply made an appointment at the foreign exchange branch of our bank who gave us the necessary forms to fill in and guided us through the process and set up our blocked rand account. We went to SARS offices personally one morning very early and got our tax clearance certificates. After about 2 years in Australia I finally had all my blocked rand account closed by sending a simple email to our exchange control officer.

So if you atill want to go ahead with formal emigration, then I would suggest you visit the foreign exchange branch of your bank and go from their. Personally I believe a little effort now will save a lot of headache once your here.

That's my 2c anyway...

Hi I am a permanent resident and have been in Australia for almost 5 years . I have now decided to formally immigrate and am looking for advice on getting this done from Australia , hopefully without Cash Cows etc. I do not have a blocked bank account but will need this in the fututre as I want to release RA funds and may also recieve a bit of an inheritence at some stage. I am on a South African passport but will be applying for citizenship within the next year. Just trying to navigate through all the complications related to the pros and cons of holding dual citizenship. Further to the inheritence, my mum owned property and when she passed away told me that this property would be split between my two brothers and I . At the moment this property is in a trust whilst my dad is still alive. Bearing all this in mind does anyone have advice on whether I should hold on to dual citizenship for the reason of being part of the trust of the trust etc Any advice would be welcome.

[R0dney]

Hi I am a permanent resident and have been in Australia for almost 5 years . I have now decided to formally immigrate and am looking for advice on getting this done from Australia , hopefully without Cash Cows etc. I do not have a blocked bank account but will need this in the fututre as I want to release RA funds and may also recieve a bit of an inheritence at some stage. I am on a South African passport but will be applying for citizenship within the next year. Just trying to navigate through all the complications related to the pros and cons of holding dual citizenship. Further to the inheritence, my mum owned property and when she passed away told me that this property would be split between my two brothers and I . At the moment this property is in a trust whilst my dad is still alive. Bearing all this in mind does anyone have advice on whether I should hold on to dual citizenship for the reason of being part of the trust of the trust etc Any advice would be welcome.

[Heymanse]

Hi R0dney,

As per RichardH's advice above, why don't you try following the path he took to set up a blocked Rand account (seeing as he did it from Australia).

Have a look at this link from Cahskows which give you a pretty short and sweet rundown of what you should consider when trusts and inheritances are involved:

http://www.cashkows.com/inheritance-trusts.asp

Edited July 4, 2013 by Heymanse

[R0dney]

Thanks a lot. I suspect dealing with our ex bank (Standard)by telephone may come with some challenges. The 336 Form also seems to have questions which are more applicable to families still residing in SA and could b e difficult to complete.

[RichardH]

Thanks a lot. I suspect dealing with our ex bank (Standard)by telephone may come with some challenges. The 336 Form also seems to have questions which are more applicable to families still residing in SA and could b e difficult to complete.

Use the forex department at FNB. They have been reasonably good. I had to nag them like hell, but "....the squeaky hinge gets olied first..."

Search for their contact details in the forum. There is a contact there, Zenda I beleive?

[Heymanse]

Thanks a lot. I suspect dealing with our ex bank (Standard)by telephone may come with some challenges. The 336 Form also seems to have questions which are more applicable to families still residing in SA and could b e difficult to complete.

We were with Standard Bank and if you like I can PM you the details of the exchange control officers we dealt with.

[R0dney]

Awsome thanks that should help a lot. I was with Standard Bank but closed my account as the charges were starting to add up.

[mllh]

Hi All.

We are booked for non-ret flights through IOM for 18 Aug 2013 for Perth on PR visas. We don't intend finalising and settling all our debts and de-register tax now, we'll do that later on and set our attorney as proxy in SA.

Has anybody been asked for tax clearances before boarding the plane? Is this policed in any way at the airport? What about customs - where do they come in to the picture? .

Regards

Marius

[Heymanse]

Awsome thanks that should help a lot. I was with Standard Bank but closed my account as the charges were starting to add up.

Hi Rodney,

I do apologise for the delay - I have sent you a PM with the details.

[Pertheption]

Hi All.

We are booked for non-ret flights through IOM for 18 Aug 2013 for Perth on PR visas. We don't intend finalising and settling all our debts and de-register tax now, we'll do that later on and set our attorney as proxy in SA.

Has anybody been asked for tax clearances before boarding the plane? Is this policed in any way at the airport? What about customs - where do they come in to the picture? .

Regards

Marius

I have raised this concern myself before as we intend to do exactly the same when the time comes. As far as I know you won't have any hassles. Financial immigration is different and does not have to be done when you leave. If you are trying to cash in RAs and the like then you will have to financially emmigrate first ie freeze bank accounts, tax clearance etc. I think everyone wants to take as much money as possible and sort out their debts from Aus. In fact when my provident fund pays out after 3 months of being abroad, then all my SA debts will be settled.

[Heymanse]

I have raised this concern myself before as we intend to do exactly the same when the time comes. As far as I know you won't have any hassles. Financial immigration is different and does not have to be done when you leave. If you are trying to cash in RAs and the like then you will have to financially emmigrate first ie freeze bank accounts, tax clearance etc. I think everyone wants to take as much money as possible and sort out their debts from Aus. In fact when my provident fund pays out after 3 months of being abroad, then all my SA debts will be settled.

Just out of interest, you do realise that your bank accounts will not be "frozen" but just "blocked" when you officialy emigrate which simply means that an Exchange Control officer will be handling your account and any money going in and out of that account on your behalf. Also, you do not have to settle all your debt before leaving South Africa if you formally emigrate. We weren't able to sell our 2 cars before we left and they were both still on finance and the monthly instalments were paid every month out of the blocked Rand account. I thought I'd paid off my one credit card account but later got a letter from Virgin saying that I still had an outstanding amount due which was quickly handled by my Exchange Control officer after I sent them an email. Anything that needs to go in or out of your account after you leave the country is listed on the form MP336b. That way the Bank knows exactly which payments are authorised and also will advise you of any unauthorised payments made from or to your account.

[RichtB]

When emigrating formally from RSA, one document that the company dealing with your RA will require is a Australian Tax Resident Cerificate. This means that you should have a Tax File Number (TFN) in Australia. The certificate is to prevent paying income tax in Aus and RSA on your RA payout - eventualy. The certificate is valid for one year.