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Last week National Treasury announced that it was postponing the the implementation of the proposed two-pot pension fund system by a year, following public consultations in September regarding the proposed system. Initiation is now set for 1 March 2025.

 

It makes sense as the final legislation has yet to be issued, and parliamentary approval is still required before the industry will have total certainty of what it all entails. And industry players who Personal Finance spoke with on this very podcast in the past, have said that there was no way they would be ready for implementation by March next year.  

 

There is an extensive legislative process which still needs to unfold. The revised Revenue Laws Amendment Bill and amendments to the Pension Funds Act were only issued in June this year and pension fund players are still awaiting a final response document from Treasury before it can further clarify matters raised as part of industry submissions and through the parliamentary process. 

 

Final legislation may only be available in early 2024, and much more engagement between industry and the Treasury, the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA), and the South African Revenue Service (SARS) are still required bodies throughout the process.

Predicting investment risk is challenging for a plethora of reasons, including the complexity of markets, the uncertainty factor, and of course basic human behaviour, As many industry experts and personal finance posts have professed, it is important to acknowledge that risk in the financial markets can never be completely eliminated.

Given these challenges, investors may employ various strategies to mitigate risk, such as di-ver-si-fi-cation and stress testing, but it is important to remember that these tools can only help manage risk and predicting investment risk with complete certainty will always remain elusive.

My guest today is Dr Adrian Saville, who I’ve begged to be on my show for many months, and he finally agreed to do so. Saville is a 

Investment Specialist at Genera Capital, a family office outfit and professor in Economics, Finance, and Strategy at Gibs Boundless World. He also recently presented at the Fiduciary Institute of Southern Africa (or Fisa for short) annual conference on the foundations of Investment success. He said and I quote: 'Returns follow risk. Full Stop." And that is what we will be talking about today. The Building blocks required to build a wall of defence against risk.

If you’ve never heard of the term Girl Math, neither have I until recently. It is a social media trend where young women (and Generation Z in particular) justify how they spend their money, especially on non-essentials. 



The latest discourse to hit social media revolves around spending, consumerism and economics, both real and imagined. In some videos I saw, young women describe the logical manoeuvres that allow them to justify spending money on luxuries ranging from Botox to Beyonce tickets.  

In the world of "girl math," cash is not real money, buying on sale is a form of saving and cosmetic procedure is an "investment in your future self."

"If I pay for something in cash, it feels like I got it for free," one TikToker explained. Another example she shared? If she cancelled a manicure appointment, she now has that money to spend. Look this is the first time I’ve ever watched a Tik-Tok video and I’m a Boomer so I actually have no idea what these young girls are on about, but much of Personal Finance listeners are of the younger variety and it is important for us to cater to their needs. 

So I got an expert to come and explain it all to me, and unpack the value proposition this trend holds for the fearless females of the future. 

My guest today is Farzana Botha, a Segment Manager at Sanlam Risk & Savings. She has 17 years of industry experience and is currently working on her Honours in Integrated Organisational Communications through UNISA to add to her intellectual arsenal.

There is very little which is not taxed in South Africa, from sales to sins, even savings. 

As a matter of fact, the South African tax system is structured in such a way that it actually punishes investments and income generation. The more wealth you create, the more taxes you have to pay.

Incentives are also few and far between, are not being adjusted for inflation, and benefits are stingy at best. The downgraded medical aid contribution and scrapped income protection deductions are a case in point. 

In fact, policymakers have become pretty hostile towards capital creation by subjecting it to a range of taxes, intermediary costs and regulatory charges. And the numbers show it. South Africa's Household Saving Ratio is at an all-time low of -0.5%. So on average South African residents save less than nothing. That is an alarming rate.

It is for that reason, that we invited Ettiene Retief to be our guest today, because it is clear to me that individual investors might not be aware of what taxes are payable when you buy into or sell out of an investment. 

Ettiene is a Tax Specialist, with more than 23 years’ experience in anything that goes with it.  He is also the chairman of the National Tax and SARS Stakeholder Committee of the South African Institute of Professional Accountants (or SAIPA for short) and Centre of Tax Excellence. So he is well-placed to provide clear and practical insights for our listeners on how individual investors can make smart tax-informed decisions for their investment portfolios

At last week’s South African Institute of Taxation Tax Indaba, trusts were on the agenda again. And the South African Revenue Service (Sars) new measures of ensuring trusts are run as separate entities (such as companies) on a real-time basis and not on an ad hoc basis in an attempt to prove compliance, was very much part of the conversation.

Phia van der Spuy, our regular Trust-to-Trust columnist in Business Report, and the monthly Trustworthy opinion piece writer for our Saturday feature in Independent on a Saturday, Weekend Argus and Saturday Star, is our guest today. She led a panel on this very topic at the Indaba and she is going help us layman get into the nitty gritty of this important part of trusts play in financial and estate planning and the huge element of tax that goes with it. 

Phia is a chartered accountant with a Master’s degree in tax and a registered fiduciary practitioner as well as, a chartered tax adviser and a trust and estate practitioner

It is National Wills Week, the annual national awareness campaign championed by the law society, that looks into one very important part of estate planning - having a will. 



By making a will you ensure that your assets are disposed of in accordance with your wishes after your death. This privilege is called “freedom of testation”.

But today I want to explore some of the more technical aspects of not having a valid will when you die. 

If you die without leaving a valid will, your assets will be distributed according to the provisions of the Intestate Succession Act. The provisions of this Act are generally fair and ensure that your possessions are transferred to your spouse and children, and where applicable, to siblings, parents, and if required, then to the extended family in terms of degrees of relationships and those that were dependent on you for financial support.

I have Jocelyn Manda, Fiduciary Specialist at PPS as my guest today to go through some of the problems loved ones left behind face when a head of a household or breadwinner dies without a will.