Deloitte & Touche has launched a new online tax tool to help taxpayers calculate their capital gains for the purposes of capital gains tax. The tool is intended to be appropriate for all kinds of taxpayers, from private taxpayers to corporates.
D&T tax partner Nithia Nalliah says the idea arose because of the immense complexity in calculating capital gains, which can be highly onerous if performed manually. The product, to be known as CAPCALC, will perform the calculations, and help find the most effective and least onerous basis of calculation to use (such as time apportionment or market value), says Nalliah.
"The system thus automates the calculations, even the most complex ones," says Nalliah.
The product is the culmination of about a year`s work, says Tony Nunes of Deloitte & Touche Tax Technologies. It needed to encapsulate five different calculators, each with 40 different calculations, he says, 200 calculations in all.
Formulae were reviewed, and scenarios run using dummy data. The product was extensively tested by D&T`s compliance department, and was found to deliver significant timesaving, reducing a four to six hour task to one taking a couple of minutes.
Nunes says the technology is relatively simple, with the core HTML and basic java script for the calculations. Payment for calculations is secured using SSL technology. No data on the calculations is actually stored, with the system merely generating a document which will be printed by the taxpayer and can be attached to the taxpayer`s tax return.
"The calculator provides all of the information that the SA Revenue Service (Sars) requires," says Nalliah.
Users will be charged R100 per calculation. The calculator has extensive validation checking, so that the user cannot proceed if there are obvious errors in the data inputted.
The calculator will limit users to 50 calculations per user session, which Nunes says is to protect users from extensive data loss, should the connection to the site be prematurely terminated.
Nalliah says the calculator covers 95% of capital gains calculations. "The remaining five percent relates to the more obscure calculations, such as gains on foreign assets, where regulations still have to be formulated," he says.
The calculator will be rolled out over the next few weeks, says Nalliah. He expects to see significant updates over the next five years as capital gains tax laws are amended, says Nalliah.
The calculator can be accessed at www.corptaxsa.co.za. For more information on CAPCALC, please contact (for tax purposes) Nithia Nalliah (011 806 5660) / Peter Harrison (021 670 1662) or (technology issues) Michael Cox (011 806 5579).
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