.Pharsyde is doing a series of blog posts designed specifically to raise awareness with regards to statutory submissions. Business ownership overs a wide-range and long list of responsibilities and it is not uncommon for a small business owner to be unaware of the extent of his legal requirements. These posts cover the common statutory submissions: what they are, why they exist and when they are due. If you need more detail about a specific submission or help in getting it right, please give us a shout – we would be happy to go through them in detail with you.
The Unemployment Insurance Fund provides short-term unemployment benefits to workers who qualify. These include:
- Unemployment benefits
- Maternity benefits
- Illness benefits
- Adoption benefits
How the fund works, why it exists and how to claim can all be found on www.labour.gov.za and as a business owner, you should read all about it and the Basic Conditions of Employment Act. But once you have all of that sorted, this is what you need to know regarding submissions:
As an employer with one staff member or more, you are required to register with the UIF and submit a U-19 declaration form on a monthly basis.
It is a common misconception that if you are registered with SARS for the monthly PAYE/SDL/UIF submission that you are registered for UIF. This is not the case. The SARS EMP return only covers the payment portion of your UIF responsibilities. You are also required to register with the fund directly and to submit the U-19 to them.
If you use an electronic payroll system, then most of them will generate the U-19 form for you and normally they have an electronic submission included as well. If you do not use an electronic payroll system that submits the U-19 for you, then you need to register with U-Filing here and submit the form every month before the 7th of the month.
The U-19 form is a summary of your employees (name, surname and ID), their earnings for the month and the amount of UIF paid. The actual payment of your UIF is made via SARS on an EMP return.
Want more info? You can read the UIF Act here. And the UIF How To Guides here.
Find this confusing? Book a call with us and we can chat through it in detail.
