Planning Topics

With Insurance Awareness Day around the corner, on 28 June 2023, this marks an ideal opportunity to remind South Africans of the value of insurance and encourage those who don’t have cover to seriously reconsider.According to Budget Insurance, an alarming number of South Africans would have to pay…

The Reserve Bank’s Quarterly Bulletin for the fourth quarter of 2022 states that consumers spend 62.3% of their net disposable household income to service debt. This figure is very worrying. It clearly indicates that consumers find themselves in a debt trap, causing stress, and anxiety, eroding…

For the upcoming Rugby World Cup, Takealot.com and Samsung are once again calling on South Africans to proudly #BackTheBucks all the way to the final and score a free Samsung TV.In 2019, South Africa’s leading online store Takealot and - Samsung came together to #BackTheBucks, promising all…

Former Personal Finance Editor Bruce Cameron and former Financial Planning Institute of Southern Africa’s (FPI) Financial Planner of the Year, Wouter Fourie, have released the third edition of their book: The Ultimate Guide to Retirement in South Africa.This book is a valuable resource for people…

If you have WhatsApp, chances are that you woke up to a barrage of winter-wonderland videos from friends or family around the country, as snow made landfall in Johannesburg, the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal over the weekend. The South African Weather Service (SAWS) has warned that the combination…

The much-discussed global recession forecast for this year has not materialised. On the contrary, the US market performed surprisingly well in the second quarter, considering the first-quarter wobbles in its banking sector. Here in South Africa, local stocks remained relatively flat over the six…

Last Friday, July 7, marked the beginning of the 2023 income tax filing season for South African taxpayers. Non-provisional taxpayers have until October 23 to file their returns and provisional taxpayers have until January 24 next year.If you’re lucky, you won’t have to do a thing ‒ or very little…

The Board of Healthcare Funders (BHF) was successful in its application to the High Court in Pretoria this week, to overturn the moratorium that prohibits medical schemes from providing low-cost benefit options (LCBOs) to South Africans who cannot afford full medical scheme membership. The BHF…

By Harry Scherzer, CEO, Future ForexFOLLOWING a bout of shocks to the country’s economy over the past few years, South Africa was suddenly struck with another bombshell earlier this year as the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) announced that the country had been globally greylisted considering…

By Dominique PreusBlackout, load shedding stage infinity, and total grid collapse across the whole country is the scariest situation that Eskom, South Africa’s power utility, can put the country in.Like all complex systems, multiple factors are a concern when considering grid collapse.First, a…

By Glenn GillisFinancial literacy, which can broadly be defined as the ability to understand financial concepts and make basic financial calculations, is vital for making informed financial decisions and achieving economic empowerment. But it’s a major challenge for millions of South Africans,…

By Francis MaraisSouth Africans are lucky to have a wide variety of savings and investment options available to achieve their diverse financial goals. This may be for long-term wealth creation, medium-term goals (like saving for a deposit on a house) or short-term emergency funds that need to be…

By Johan BotesIf you enjoyed ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ in 2022, consider its predecessor, released in South Africa in 1986. That year, we not only imported an iconic movie into our popular culture but also the concept of constructive dismissal into our law. It was 37 years ago that the Labour Court’s…

A complicated part of a trust is its tax treatment, the fact that it is a taxpayer of last resort. This means other taxpayers may have to reflect trust generated income and capital gains in their tax returns rather than the trust on its tax return. This may affect provisional tax returns (due at…

The annual report of the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC) of South Africa for the 2021/22 financial year is published by National Treasury. However, the CIPC is a division of the Department of Trade and Industry and Competition (DTIC), under the leadership of Minister Ebrahim…

Bonitas Medical Aid celebrated its 42nd year of existence by posting a net surplus and boosting its member reserves by more than R1 billion. Bonitas is South Africa’s second-largest open medical scheme.Releasing its 2022 financial results this week, Bonitas said it achieved a net surplus supported…

The Nedbank Top Empowerment Conference is the opportunity it presents for networking and collaboration. Business leaders, consultants, and policymakers attending the event will have the chance to connect with like-minded professionals from various industries, fostering partnerships and…

No matter what stage of your 60s you are at, you are moving closer towards retirement.People may think of retirement as a distant thought, but they forget that once they retire, they will no longer receive a paycheque. They should also factor in medical costs because, as they get older, they may…

The relationship between the South African Revenue Service (Sars) and the recognised controlling bodies (RCBs) in regulating the tax profession is aimed at safeguarding uniform standardisation and enforcement of professional rules and standards to enhance professionalism within the field of…

Global Forex and CFD industry leader BDSwiss enjoyed the spotlight in Asia at the UF AWARDS APAC 2023 ceremony, qualifying among the top financial service providers offering one of the best Partnership Programmes in the industry.A testament of the broker’s commitment to provide best-in-class…