Leask & Partners, Chartered Accountants (SA)

Accounting, Auditing, Business Consulting, Estates, Payroll, Secretarial Services, Tax, Trusts ... more info.

Leask & Partners, Chartered Accountants (SA), service clients in major cities and surrounding areas in Gauteng,
Western Cape, Kwa-Zulu Natal, Free State, Mpumalanga, North-West and internationally.

PRIVATE COMPANIES NOW REQUIRED TO SUBMIT ANNUAL RETURNS TO CIPRO

The Law

Section 173 of the Companies Act, 1973, which came into operation on 25 August 2003, provides that all companies must lodge an Annual Return with the Registrar of Companies. The Act further requires that this return must be lodged every year by not later than the end of the month which follows upon the month within which the anniversary of the company's incorporation occurs. So for example a company incorporated in May of any previous year, will have to submit their Annual Returns by no later than end of the following month i.e. June. Those incorporated in June will lodge by end of July, and so on.

The objective of Annual Returns is to confirm that the companies are still in business and that the information held on public record is still valid. Annual Returns are used in most countries across the world to update information kept by the Registrar. All private Companies are obliged to submit Annual Returns with effect from 1 May 2005 together with the following prescribed fees payable to CIPRO. To further complicate matters, CIPRO insists that returns are submitted online and payments made over the internet!

Annual turnover less than R10m..............................................R.. 450.00
Annual turnover above R10m but less than R50m...............R2 500.00
Annual turnover R50m and above............................................R4 000.00
External companies……………………………………....……R4 000.00

Companies that fail to lodge an Annual Return and pay the prescribed fee by due date will be charged an additional fee by CIPRO of R150. If the return remains outstanding 6 months after the due date the Registrar of Companies will assume that the company is dormant and commence steps to deregister the company. This has personal consequences for the company’s directors including liability for the company’s debts during the period that the company remains deregistered. Restoring a company’s registration is a lengthy and expensive process.

How can Leask & Partners help me?

If you have not yet made arrangements for submitting your company’s return and would like Leask & Partners to do this for you, then please contact our secretarial department who will be happy to assist. Our fee for this service is R750 plus VAT which we believe is good value considering the time and hassle of filing returns.

We will need a power of attorney that authorises us to submit the return as well as advance payment of fees payable to CIPRO. Our fee will be invoiced and payable when your return has been submitted. To download the power of attorney simply click your language of choice: English or Afrikaans. Note that we will require an original thereof. Fax copies are unfortunately not valid.

Interested or need further information? Please contact the following staff members:

Pretoria	Donne Visser	donne@leask.co.za	012 348 6404
George	Ansie Griffin	ansie@george.leask.co.za	044 870 8600
Ballito/Durban	Pieter v Schalkwyk	office@ballito.leask.co.za	032 946 3955

Please do not hesitate to contact any of our staff should you require any further information in the above regard.