VIEWPOINT: Cloud technology

Many businesses put large amounts of time and money into investing in and managing their hardware and software. This is all fine and well if your business is in IT, but what about if it isn’t? How much money have you invested in technology you don’t understand? How many additional man hours do you expend…

UP-TO-DATE: Keeping you informed of business today

Deductions for donations to schools Donations are an important source of funding for many South African schools, because although parents contribute towards their children’s education, most schools are struggling to operate without additional funding from donors. Added to this, many donors are not aware of the generous tax deduction benefits associated with donations to schools…

PUBLIC SECTOR: Government business enterprises

A number of issues have been raised, both locally and internationally, in the last few years about appropriate reporting frameworks for government business enterprises (GBEs), the entities listed in Schedules 2, 3B and 3D of the Public Finance Management Act 1 of 1999, as amended (PFMA). Locally, many argue that GBEs should apply the same…

VIEWPOINT: Share the load

I recently read an article in the Harvard Business Review that described an experiment on people’s perceptions. A team from Rutgers University asked a group of people to guess the weight of a box of potatoes. When participants were told they would have to lift the box alone, they correctly guessed it weighed an average…

ANALYSIS: Casting the tax net globally

Globalisation, cross-border transactions and a booming e-commerce environment are posing challenges for the collection of taxes – events that have prompted tax authorities across the world to move collectively to counter the loss of tax revenues within their tax jurisdictions. Although double tax agreements (DTAs) assist with the collection of income taxes, the major questions…

INFLUENCE: Annual reports more than compliance documents

The size of the annual report of all companies is ballooning, and not necessarily with more useful information. The communicative value of financial statements prepared using International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) is diminishing and they are becoming no more than compliance documents. Many national standard-setters, institutes and regulators around the world have undertaken work on…