I registered my company last year and the financial year end is 28 February. I don’t know what I need to do, please can you advise me?
First, you should contact the appointed accounting officer / auditor to your company. You will find the details of the company or person on your company formation documents. Depending on certain criteria (Public Interest Scorecard), your company will either have to be audited or not be audited.
Get your documents in order
The accounting officer / auditor will be able to advise you what information they will require. This will mostly be:
- The company bank account information
- Bank statements
- Supplier invoices
- Customer invoices, etc.
These will be used to draft the company’s financial statements.
Bear in mind that this can only be done once the February year end has lapsed, so in March onwards – nothing in this regard can be done prior to 28 February 2014.
Submit the tax return
Once you have submitted this information to the accountant, they will draft financial statements, and submit the company’s annual tax return (for 2014) on your behalf (only possible later in the year, somewhere around May 2014).
Depending on the trading information of the company, and whether profits were made, tax will be due, and must be paid once SARS has accepted and processed the annual tax return and raised an assessment. The assessment is like an account and shows what is due.
Don’t forget your provisional tax return
Please however also note that a company with a financial year end of February also has to submit a provisional tax return on or before 28 February 2014. This return is based on the trading of the company since inception up to 28 February 2014, and if profits are estimated for the period up to 28 February 2014, a payment on 28 February 2014 will be due.
Any payment made on 28 February 2014 will be credited against the tax due for the year, and only the balance, if any, is due later in the year once the company’s 2014 annual tax return has been submitted and assessed.