Payment holiday feedback on skills levies

All employers have been granted extension to submit their WSPs and ATRs by 31 May 2020.  Electronic signatures on all documents are accepted by BANKSETA and can be uploaded on the MIS.

Skills Development Levy Payment Holiday

On the 29th March 2020 the Minister of Finance announced the details of an initial set of measures to assist compliant businesses with further tax relief.

From the 1st May 2020, a four-month holiday for skills development levy contributions (1% of total salaries) to assist all businesses has been introduced (https://www.gov.za/speeches/treasury-further-tax-measures-combat-coronavirus-covid-19-pandemic-23-apr-2020-0000). This relates to levies that the BANKSETA would have received in June 2020 going forward.

Mandatory Grants will be impacted as the mandatory grant payment is based on 20% of the levies the stakeholder pays.

NOTE: If the stakeholder pays no levies in any month, they will not receive a mandatory grant for the relevant month.

BANKSETA receives levies for the month after the stakeholder pays them, e.g. March levies are received in April.

BANKSETA pays levies quarterly in arrears from when we receive the levies. Therefore, we assume that March 2020 levies were paid in full, but April, May, June and July 2020 levies will not have been paid at all by the stakeholders due to the levy holiday.

In June 2020 BANKSETA will pay mandatory grants based on February, March, and April levies. These will be less than normal because stakeholders would not have paid April levies.

There will be no mandatory grants due in September as stakeholders will not have paid May, June and July 2020 levies.

The December 2020 mandatory grants will be based on 20% of what is paid for August, September and October.

Discretionary Grants are not impacted at this stage.