PENSION FUNDS AMENDMENT BILL: PARLIAMENTARY PROCESS PROLONGED

PENSION FUNDS AMENDMENT BILL: PARLIAMENTARY PROCESS PROLONGED

• 23 April 2024
• Parliament
• SA Legal Academy

Please note: On 16 May 2024, during its final pre-elections plenary, the reconvened National Assembly passed the Bill’s ‘D’ version. Now reflecting changes made by the NCOP, the Bill is ready to be sent to the President for signature.

The NCOP’s Finance Committee has recommended several more changes to the Pension Funds Amendment Bill. This is according to a report recently tabled in the House, among other things describing the amendments proposed as ‘technical’ in nature. If endorsed at the next NCOP plenary session, these changes will need to be sent to the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Finance for concurrence. A revised Bill incorporating them will then need to be formally passed by that House.

Since the National Assembly of South Africa’s sixth democratic Parliament and its committees have already risen to deal with pre-election constituency work, it seems more than likely that the Bill will be allowed to lapse. Once revived under the seventh democratic Parliament, it will then be considered by a new National Assembly Standing Committee on Finance – many members of which could well be unfamiliar with its contents.

As SA Legal Academy has regularly reported, the Bill deals with the tax treatment of contributions to and withdrawals from eligible retirement funds under the two-pot system. To that end, according to a memorandum on its objects, the Bill seeks to enable retirement funds to ‘appropriately implement’ amendments to the Income Tax Act included in the Revenue Laws Amendment Bill, a ‘B’ version of which is now waiting to be signed into law.

The Revenue Laws Amendment Bill provides for the introduction of a two-pot retirement savings system on 1 September 2024.

• Bill’s ‘D’ version (incorporating NCOP committee changes)
• NCOP committee ‘C’ list of proposed changes
• Bill’s ‘B’ version (passed by the National Assembly on 27 March 2024)
• parliamentary papers, including NCOP committee report (page 6)

Published by SA Legal Academy Policy Watch

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