South Africa: How do I exclude a company and its employees from contributing to the SDL?
All South African companies can be set to be exempt from contributing to the Skills Development Levy (SDL) for various reasons as set out by Government Gazette.
Companies can be exempt from contributing to the SDL for the following reasons:
- Provincial sphere of government
- Learner/Excluded from Skills Levy
- 80% or more of expenditure paid by Parliament
- Municipality with certificate of exemption
- Religious or charitable public benefit activity
- SARS exemption Labour Broker
- Total amount of employee remuneration is less than R500 000
Company level configuration
The company exemption reason can be configured on the Company SDL exemption reason field under the Statutory Fields tab on the Basic Company Information screen, during the company creation workflow process.
Navigate > Configuration > Basic Settings > Company Settings > Basic Company Information > Statutory Fields > Statutory Fields
Employee level configuration
If employees are also excluded from contributing to the SDL, for the above-mentioned exemption reasons, the reason must be recorded on the affected employee records, i.e. on the SDL exemption reason field under the Exemptions and Other tab on their Basic Profile screen.
Navigate > Employee > Basic Information > Basic Profile > Exemptions and Other
Should a scenario arise where a company is granted a SDL exemption after it had been created, the SDL exemption can be configured on company level. The system will automatically apply the exemption reason to all employees onboarded after the exemption is set, however, SDL will continue to calculate on pre-existing employee records (i.e. profiles active before the configured exemption reason).
To resolve this on all exempt employees (i.e. stop SDL from calculating going forward), follow the steps under the Employee level configuration subheading outlined above. Alternatively, this can be done via the Bulk Actions screen using the Basic Profile or Update Employee Information action types.
Navigate > Bulk Actions
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