South Africa: SARS clarifies tax exemptions on foreign pensions

You will not be taxed in South Africa on a pension that you accumulated while you worked outside the country, although this exemption is subject to several qualifications.

In November, the South African Revenue Service (SARS) issued Binding General Ruling 25, which aims to resolve the disputes that have arisen between SARS and some taxpayers whose pensions are partly or entirely the result of employment outside the country.

The ruling means that a pension that accrues for services rendered outside South Africa by a South African resident will generally not be subject to tax in this country, the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (Saica) says in a statement. If the services were rendered both in South Africa and abroad, the portion of the pension to qualify for the exemption will be calculated using a formula where the period of employment abroad is a ratio of the total period of employment.

Marika Muller, the deputy spokesperson for SARS, says existing disputes over pensions from foreign employment will be dealt with according to the ruling.

A section of the Income Tax Act exempts from tax any pension received by or accrued to a resident from a source outside South Africa for past employment outside the country, Jenny Klein, a tax manager at ENSAfrica, says.

COULD GOLD COINS OFFER SHINING RETURNS?

130 years ago gold was discovered in South Africa, and 20 years ago the country became a democracy. This has seen the release of the 1oz 20-Year Democracy Gold Coin. Alan Demby, Chairman of The South African Gold Coin Exchange joins CNBC Africa for a look at whether the gold coin market could offer shining returns.

ACHIEVING INCLUSIVE GROWTH IN AFRICA

From the recently concluded World Economic Forum on Africa CNBC Africa's Wole Famurewa spoke to Jabu Mabuza, Chairman of Telkom and discussed how business leaders can achieve inclusive growth and create jobs.

AFRICA STILL ATTRACTIVE DESPITE CHALLENGES

The confidence index for Africa among business leaders has remained unchanged over the third quarter of 2014, according to YPO Global Pulse.

The Young Presidents’ Organisation (YPO) Global Pulse Confidence Index for Africa released on Tuesday puts Africa at 61.9 points despite the Ebola outbreak that is rampaging West African states.

According to Paul Kavuma, CEO at Catalyst Principal Partners, business leaders in Africa maintained a cautious optimism.

“Any sought of confidence rating over 60 per cent still shows strong confidence and optimism in the economy. So generally Africa although it remains stagnant from one perspective, it is actually stagnant but at a high level and while it may have been stagnant because there are some economics that have been under more pressure while others have been really racing well  and doing extremely well,” Kavuma said in a statement.

Five Tips to Turn Web Viewers Into Shoppers

Question: Two business partners and I run a small e-commerce website. We generate plenty of Web traffic, but we can’t seem to convert the views into online purchases. Are we leaving out something? Any advice will help.

Answer: Use Web analytic tools to determine how your site is performing overall. Who’s visiting and from where? How long are they staying on your site? What pages are they visiting? How far are they getting into the checkout process before abandoning their carts? There are many free Web analytic tools you can use to get this information, and many e-commerce platforms incorporate them in your storefront.

“It’s a good idea to constantly review your site’s analytics to determine where weak spots may lie or stumbling blocks may pop up that act as roadblocks to a sale,” says Scott Sanfilippo, co-founder of e-commerce consulting company Solid Cactus. You might also consider such software as CrazyEgg heatmapping. It allows you to see exactly where people are clicking on your Web pages. “That might reveal something about how people interact with a page that you can act on,” says Michael LaVista, chief executive of Caxy, a Chicago Web and application development business.

Once you have a handle on your numbers, here are five tips to improve sales:

Hard Choices for Nene as Slow Growth Crimps South Africa Budget

South African Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene will give more details on plans to help plug a 225-billion rand ($20 billion) funding gap at Eskom, which could include selling some “non-strategic assets,” according to the National Treasury. Photographer: Simon Dawson/Bloomberg

South African Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene may use his first mid-term budget to announce something the government has been loathe to try for years: selling assets.

Nene will present revised economic-growth and fiscal targets and probably announce plans to sell government investments that may include mobile-phone operator Vodacom Group Ltd. (VOD) to shore up the budget when he speaks from 2 p.m. today in Parliament in Cape Town. Strikes at platinum mines and metals and engineering companies dimmed hopes of meeting February’s 2.7 percent growth target for this year and a 4 percent budget gap in the year through March 2015.

Africa: Emirates to Grow Africa Operations By 40 Percent in Coming Decade

Dubai — Emirates is placing a strategic focus on Africa in the coming decade by increasing operations by over 40 percent, says Tim Clark, President of Emirates Airline.

Speaking at the Africa Global Business Forum held in Dubai, Clark said that Africa has been a great growth story for Emirates.

"Today, Emirates fleet investment in Africa tops $7 billion with operating costs of over $2 billion. We will add around 10 destinations in the next decade and will continue our investment and commitment to introduce more frequencies to our existing points to provide critical links to emerging markets from Asia, the Middle East and Australia," said Clark.

Clark noted that Africa is still an under-served market. "Emirates will continue to channel traffic through the Dubai hub which has already become a key gateway for the African continent," he said.

Statistics provided by Emirates indicate the airline has carried over 1.6 million passengers and 40,000 tons of cargo between Africa and China in the past five years. By 2020, Emirates expects to provide an additional 8.5 million seats to its African capacity.

In addition, there are over 500,000 African nationals now residing in Dubai. Over 800,000 Africans visited Dubai in 2013 alone and it is estimated that by 2020, tourism from Africa to Dubai will reach over 1.5 million visitors per year.

Emirates has steadily built up its presence on the continent since it launched flights to Cairo in 1986, which has contributed remarkable to the airlines strong growth. During the financial year 2010-2011, Africa contributed AED5.59 billion in revenue, which translates to 10.5pc of the airline's total annual revenue and representing 17.7pc growth over the previous year.

"Our long-term outlook for Africa is very positive. We believe several regions in the eastern, central, western, northern and southern Africa offer great potential for our passenger and cargo business. We also believe that ensuing political stability across Africa, government policies to promote air business, increasing trade with Asia, influx in foreign direct Investment, trade liberalization and continuing consumer demand for household goods as a result of a growing middle class will positively impact on our business in Africa in the future," he said.

The airline currently operates 22 passenger and 6 dedicated freighter destinations to Africa.

Source: CapitalFM

Global PE Firms’ Investments in Africa More Than Doubled in First Half

KKR invested about $200 million in Ethiopian flower company Afriflora; above, an Afriflora worker.

 

Afriflora

It turns out Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. isn’t the only one to stop and smell the roses.

The buyout shop, which earlier this year invested in Ethiopian flower company Afriflora, is one of a number of global players drawn to the growth prospects of Africa.

Investment by international shops more than doubled in the first half of the year to $1.5 billion compared with $621 million during the same period a year earlier, data from law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer show.

As KKR’s deal in Ethiopia indicates, interest is expanding beyond South Africa, which has historically commanded the bulk of global firms’ foreign investment.

According to Freshfields, between 2004 and 2009, 75% of capital invested by global firms was in South Africa. Between 2009 and 1H 2013, that figure was 10%.

Elumelu Launches $15.6m Empowerment Fund For Disaster Management

VENTURES AFRICA – Nigerian banker, investor and philanthropist, Tony Elumelu, has established a N2.5 billion ($15.6 million) development initiative called The Elumelu Nigeria Empowerment Fund aimed at repositioning and revitalizing disaster communities in Nigeria.

The Fund is financed and managed by The Tony Elumelu Foundation and is expected to create economically sustainable and thriving units out of communities that have been hit by conflicts, hazards and disasters. It seeks to do so by creating opportunities and empowering people in affected communities, helping them rebuild their lives and business endeavours.

Speaking at the launch of the Fund, Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan lauded Elumelu for taking the lead in facilitating private sector participation geared towards such communities. “Rehabilitating distressed communities will require interventions not just from the government, but also from the private sector. Therefore, I am pleased to see that Tony Elumelu, one of our private sector leaders, stepped up in a big way – by making a major contribution to the Victim Support Fund and that his effort did not end there as he has now created The Elumelu Nigeria Empowerment Fund,” he said.

The Fund will place a huge emphasis on developing and supporting entrepreneurs in the affected areas by facilitating access to seed funding, capacity building and mentorship. From social welfare projects to initiatives bordering around solving environmental issues, the fund will actively play a central role in stimulating and sustaining an entrepreneurial atmosphere in such regions.

Six Africans Make List of Top 15 Young Innovative Scientists Globally

VENTURES AFRICA – Led by the U.S Department of State and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), this year’s Global Innovation through Science and Technology (GIST) has released the list of top 15 finalists who will live pitch at the finals next November in Morocco, a list that boasts of 6 young Africans.

According to its website, GIST operates at the intersection of science & technology, innovation, and entrepreneurship to empower individual innovators and to strengthen entrepreneurial ecosystems. It does so by equipping young men and women around the world with the skills they need to be successful entrepreneurs and leaders who turn their ideas into new venture that transform their communities.

Also, the initiative takes innovators from around the world, augments their skills, builds networks, and connects them with mentors and investors – from New York to Silicon Valley – that can help them realize their ambitions. Since 2011, GIST has mentored over 3,500 startups, generated over $21 million in financing, and engaged over 1 million innovators and entrepreneurs.

Time for brakes to be lifted on entrepreneurial boulder

The Minister of Small Business Development, Ms Lindiwe Zulu

WOMEN'S’ entrepreneurial spirit is one of the keys that apartheid South Africa perceived to be a dangerous rolling boulder that, if pursued in earnest, could have radically tipped the socio-economic scales in ways that could have injected life-changing energies into the worn-out economic orthodoxy.

Throughout South Africa’s communities, women’s enterprising spirit never existed for itself but as the pursuit of a citizen-driven capitalism that, beyond the pains of labour, continued to provide nourishment to families and communities alike.

Despite apartheid’s targeted intent to debilitate women’s entrepreneurial spirit, their determination crystallised with each hurdle.

Due to life’s necessities, and relying on their natural creativity, women similar to my grandmother, a woman who, without formal business education, managed to add value to an assortment of merchandise that sold in various niche markets in and beyond South Africa’s borders.

From Emanguzi and Oshoek to Thaba Nchu and Marico these women outmanoeuvred the double-edged sword of, on one hand, apartheid social engineering and, on the other, shifting consumer markets with ever-growing expectations.

Microsoft funding helps graduates to grow start-up

A START-UP created by four Strathclyde computer science graduates is helping to solve farming problems in Africa with seed funding from Microsoft.

Glasgow-based Cojengo has been awarded an innovation grant, technical support and one-on-one mentorship by the software giant to get its business model off the ground and fast track its growth.

The company has developed the VetAfrica mobile app to help tens of millions of farmers across the continent solve animal health issues and share disease surveillance data.

Craig Taylor, chief executive, said: "Our app enables vets, animal health workers and rural farmers to quickly and accurately diagnose livestock illness and identify which drugs are most effective to treat disease."

He said the app had been designed six years ago but had "sat on the shelf" until Microsoft unveiled its 4Afrika Initiative, which aims to accelerate African innovation with support for entrepreneurial companies.