Merchants who provide a service or sells goods in South Africa and exceed taxable supplies (income/turnover generated from services and selling of goods) amounting to R 50,000 in the past twelve months can voluntary elect to be registered for VAT.
IMPORTANT: It is mandatory for a person to register for VAT if the taxable supplies made or to be made is, in excess of R1 million in any consecutive twelve-month period.
Invoices
As of 22 October 2015, Section 20 of the VAT Act was amended to provide that the words ‘Tax invoice’, ‘VAT invoice’ or ‘Invoice’ may be used on a tax invoice issued by a vendor. This is a welcome change.
IMPORTANT: A merchant is required to issue a full invoice when the price is more than R5 000 (referred to as consideration for the supply) and may issue an abridged tax invoice when the consideration for the supply is less than R5 000.
The following summarises the information that should reflect on an invoice for it to be valid:
Full Tax Invoice ( >R5000 ) | Abridged Tax Invoice |
The words "INVOICE", "VAT INVOICE" or "TAX INVOICE". | The words "INVOICE", "VAT INVOICE" or "TAX INVOICE". |
Name, address and VAT registration number of the supplier (the merchant). | Name, address and VAT registration number of the supplier (the merchant). |
Name, address and VAT registration number of the recipient (person receiving the taxable supplies). |
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Serial number and date of issue. | Serial number and date of issue. |
Full and proper description of the goods and/ or services. | A description of the goods and/ or services. |
Quantity or volume of goods or services supplied. |
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Price and VAT (according to any of the 3 approved methods). Yoco makes use of Method 1. | Price and VAT (according to any of the 3 approved methods). Yoco makes use of Method 1. |
The three approved methods for reflecting the consideration and VAT for taxable supplies are as follows:
Method 1 | Method 2 | Method 3 |
All individual amounts reflected | Total consideration | Total consideration and the VAT charged. |
Price (excl. VAT) R500 | The total consideration R575 | The total consideration R575 |
VAT charged R75 | VAT included @ 15% | VAT included R75 |
Total (incl. VAT) R575 |
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If the consideration for the supply is less than R 50, an invoice in the required format is not required. However, a receipt or till slip indicating the VAT charged by the merchant will be required to verify the output tax declared by the registered VAT merchant.
The Yoco receipt emailed to the person receiving the taxable supply will have a VAT amount indicating VAT or no-VAT applicable for the transaction. The set-up for items added to your business portal to your basket will require it to activated for VAT or no VAT enabled depending on being a merchant registered for VAT.
IMPORTANT: When you use the manual amount entry, please ensure that you add a good description of the product or service supplied (add note option) to adhere to the required information to reflect on invoices and select VAT on the transaction.
If you're a VAT Vendor and your receipts from Yoco are not correctly formatted as Invoices, please contact us, and we'll update your details with your VAT Registration number.
FIND OUT more information about VAT on the SARS website .