Surprise increase in UIF contribution ceiling?

[Dave A]

Busy filing my UIF return on uFiling and "Surprise!" - an employer and employee contribution payment totaling R354.24 is expected for folk earning R20k a month.

I didn't expect.
My payroll program didn't expect.
It seems even SAICA didn't expect it - their document here has this to say on the topic:

Increase of the Scale of Benefits
The Minister of Labour has gazetted an increase to the UIF benefits payable, which relates to unemployment benefits in terms of the Unemployment Insurance Act, 2001 (Act no 63 of 2001).

Accordingly the scale of benefits referred to in Government Notice No. 588 has been amended and as of 1 April 2017the UIF earnings limit has been increased from R178 464 per annum to R212 539 per annum (or R14 872 per month to R17 712 per month).

This mentioned notice does not relate to the monthly contributions to be paid by employees and employers and there was no change to the monthly contributions payable by employees and employers.

Here is the link to the Government Gazette notice:
http://www.gov.za/sites/www.gov.za/f...691_gon231.pdf

A Google search has turned up only one person who seemed to see the notice as implying an increase in contributions too - Signates on My Broadband.

The effective date would seem to have been 1st April 2017.
I've checked, and uFiling treated the April and May submissions as having an employer and employee contribution ceiling of R297.44.



Seems someone has got it wrong!!
Anyone know what the correct story is?

[EAB]

As far as I am aware the contributions limit stayed the same. It is only the benefit limit that increased.

The last time the uif contribution limit was changes was on 26 September 2012 and is effective from 1 October 2012. If you look at the wording of the notice issued on 26 September 2012 and the one on 17 March 2017 you will see that it is talking about different items - Contributions and Benefits.

[Dave A]

So it's uFiling that has messed up?

If that's the case, I wonder how many employers are going to end up over-contributing until it's fixed

[EAB]

Seems that way, because there are nothing out to say the contributions have changes. I just checked on Sage Payroll and they are also using the old thresholds.

[Dave A]

Pretty safe to say if the contribution ceiling has been increased, there's sure to be plenty of us in the same boat.

I've entered R14 872.00 as the remuneration on which UIF was deducted for the applicable employees as a work-around to get past the uFiling return balancing out with my EMP201 return for now.

(It's my habit to process the EMP201 first, and then do the uFiling thing after - so when I hit this snag it was time).

[Optifin1]

UIF Increase on Ufiling

Pretty safe to say if the contribution ceiling has been increased, there's sure to be plenty of us in the same boat.

I've entered R14 872.00 as the remuneration on which UIF was deducted for the applicable employees as a work-around to get past the uFiling return balancing out with my EMP201 return for now.

(It's my habit to process the EMP201 first, and then do the uFiling thing after - so when I hit this snag it was time).

Frustrated and Strugling with the same problem. I contacted both SAIPA & SAIBA and Abacus Payroll.
SAIBA is only able to assist with SARS & CIPC issues.
Abacus Payroll was not aware of this increase.
SAIPA has only checked on SARS website. I am referred back to them and asked if they cannot also speak to Department of Labour.
Who else is able to assist is our associations cannot even help. An individual cannot contact Dept of Labour directly and they take six months + to answer and email sent to them.

[Dave A]

I have written to the Media Liason Officer for the Minister (Labour) asking for clarification. Hopefully there will be a response.

[Dave A]

With pay-day looming, I've been spending the morning following up on this.

The short answer is the UIF contribution ceiling has not been increased.
uFiling is in the process of being corrected.
In the meantime, the recommended workaround for filing a return on uFiling is as I did above - amend the salary to the correct (unchanged) threshold.

My thanks to Deborah at UIF Contributions office and Precious, an agent who actually answered her phone.

A tip of the hat goes to the Labour Minister's Media Liason Officer. You may not have come up with the answer in the last 12 days, but at least it seems you tried. Yes, no-one in authority answered when I called them too. Who knows why those big-shots have phones, but it certainly does not seem to be for government business.

[sterne.law@gmail.com]

To order KFC of course....