What is the difference between a measurable risk and an unmeasurable uncertainty? It was back in 1921 that economist Frank Knight differentiated between these two. Being a supporter of the notion that humans are inherently unpredictable, he distinguished risk from uncertainty. The former you can measure while the latter, you can’t. Investors and the investment…
Unemployment has been and remains one of the biggest challenges that South Africa faces. A youth wage subsidy has been on the cards for a number of years as a means of resolving this problem to some extent. The Employment Tax Incentive Act 26 of 2013 (the Act), which was promulgated on 18 December 2013…
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…
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…
With the reform of the company law regime in South Africa through the enactment of the new Companies Act 71 of 2008 (the Companies Act), as well as the regulations to the Companies Act, there has been uncertainty in practice with regard to the transitional status and treatment of shares under the Companies Act, with…
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…
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…
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…
It’s been said that if you don’t build your own dream, someone will hire you to help build theirs. It’s a maxim that two small-town entrepreneurs are living by. Describing himself as the black sheep of the family, Lefa Molete (30) says he was a naughty child who no-one expected would amount to much. In…
Most of us are familiar that when it comes to investments, the essential elements are “alpha” and “beta”. Yet what about your “gamma”, otherwise called ”the value of financial advice”? Simply, alpha is the added value that active investment management brings on top of beta, which is simply what the market achieves. The active versus…