Personal Income Tax (PIT) season is often a nightmare rush of catch-up, trying to capture and find invoices, mileage and other expenses! Now that we’re approaching March, start good habits that will make your next tax return that much easier and more rewarding in terms of returns.

You’ll be grateful you did…

Why everyone hates tax so much
Imagine yourself digging through a haystack to find a specific needle ten times in a row… that’s most people’s experience of filing tax returns. Because your information is not organised with your next tax return in mind every day or week, it’s that much harder eleven months on. Try to reduce the amount of needles lost in the haystack – or avoid the haystack entirely. Here are some tips to help you record the correct information – but please note that these are general guides. For proper tax advice, please get in touch.

Start a travel log now
This is one of the real pet peeves and where most people throw good money that they could’ve had in rebates away – their work-driving mileage. Keep a little A5 notebook in the car with you as a logbook and, each day, track your kilometres.

Another option for those of us more paperless is to take a screenshot of your odometer at the start and end of each work day and save these in a special folder on your phone.

Remember, you are not required to pay any tax on business travel expenses. That can get you a healthy rebate, as can declaring your amount of travel allowance given to you by an employer, as long as you’re not reimbursed more than 355 cents per kilometre which, let’s face it, most of us aren’t. That’s good money spent that you can get back from the taxman, as long as you keep a good record of it being for work-related travel.

Start tracking receipts now
If you’re going to track your work driving for tax, you’re going to need to keep your petrol purchase slips. So, while we’re at it, let’s talk about receipt-keeping.

Another good practice is to keep a folder in your office and car for every single receipt you accrue for work. Put everything in and use as this folder as a backup reference. Then, ask for your receipt to be emailed to you and keep that digital copy of the receipt as well. A good way to do this is simply to create a folder in your email purely for tax receipts and file things in there as soon as they come in.

Remember – do it that moment; it’s amazing how quickly we can forget. A bonus is that you’ll accrue much less paper clutter in your wallet, your car, laptop bag, handbag… definitely a win.

Because things slip through the gaps, it may also be good to set aside 20 minutes once a week – book it in your diary as if it were a meeting – and go over your work expenses for the week and check whether all of them are accounted for.

Think about using a tax professional, and keep them in the loop
A good accountant is with worth their weight in… well, tax rebates. However, handing over a mountain of receipts and logbooks once a year, just before tax deadline, is stressful for both you and them. A better way? Have a shared system where you can put stuff in immediately – a shared folder on Google Drive is a neat solution – so that your meeting the month you need to file your return is painless or, better yet, not even necessary. One less thing to do!

All these tips sound miniscule and so obvious, but that’s exactly the point: small changes do add up and, if you look after the pennies, the pounds really do look after themselves.

Try it and see. You’ll thank us next tax season, promise.

All offshore who are going offshore…

Beginning to invest offshore is increasingly looking good for worried South Africans amidst geopolitical turmoil. Depending on your risk appetite investment expectations, it can work for you and need not be an overwhelming or intimidating experience. Here’s what you need to know:

Professional help is essential
Everyone can invest offshore, it’s not only for the Oppenheimers… That being said, you cannot go it alone. Every country has its own nuanced rules and best practices; did you know that succession planning in Mauritius is completely different to here and estates don’t automatically go to spouses, or that there is no capital gains tax in Namibia?

There isn’t just one way of investing offshore
Whilst higher net-worth individuals often use bespoke investment options, average earners can invest offshore in a few different ways. The most common ways are to either invest in a foreign currency unit trust or to go large and hire a portfolio manager, through your bank usually, to set up a personal international brokerage account.

For tax reasons, many higher net-worth investors will set up an offshore trust into which they can deposit money as an investment to earn interest. If you choose this route you need to be aware of tax laws both locally and abroad. There are other options too, so again, speak to a professional advisor before you take the leap.

Relax – you don’t need a foreign bank account
Unless you’ve lived abroad and opened an account while in that country, chances are you don’t have a US or UK bank account. And that’s okay. Things like PayPal and Bitcoin are changing the game with cross-border payments and transaction and, in any case, you don’t need a foreign bank account to earn that offshore capital. You can transfer the money directly from a South African bank account in much the same way as you would transfer money from a local account to another local one.

Investing has never been a ‘one size fits all’ exercise, it’s built on a behaviour that is able to stand firm in shaky markets, is supported by a trusted advisor relationship and finds wealth in diversity.

For decades retirement savings have formed the foundation of a financial plan, and for good reason – but did you know that retirement savings can not only help finance your older years, they can save you money on tax right now?

It’s a common mistake, but many people forget to declare contributions to their retirement annuity (RA) in their tax return. The SA Revenue Service (SARS) allows tax deductions for contributions to your RA, a pension fund or provident fund up to the value of 27.5% of the greater of your taxable income or remuneration.

This is a mistake – Sars is all for your retirement savings! The amount you can get back was increased dramatically by Sars in 2016 from 15 percent to 27.5 for precisely the reason that they wanted to encourage more people to save and save for retirement.

So, let’s say Judy does not earn very much and has no pension fund at work that she contributes to. Of the R100,000 taxable income she earns a year, she puts R1,000 into her RA each month. Because this is less than 27.5 percent of her annual income, she can claim back the full amount of R12,000.

However, don’t start going crazy on the RA contributions – this deduction is also limited to an annual ceiling of R350 000 per annum, even if that is less than 27.5 percent of your taxable income. If Judy were contributing R35,000 per month instead of R1,000 she would only be able to claim back for R350,000 even though she actually saved R420,000 – a whole R70,000 more than she’s able to claim.

If you’re in the position of being able to invest more than R29,000 in retirement savings contributions in any form each month, you need to be exploring different options. For example, you could leverage the benefit of a discretionary savings portfolio, which not only diversifies your money but is also far less heftily taxed when you hit retiring age and withdraw (capital gains tax as opposed to the far larger personal income tax).

These kinds of decisions are best made with a professional financial advisor, so come in and have a chat. It’s possible to save for your future and have that retirement money save you tax in the short term.

It’s Valentine’s Day this month, a holiday that doesn’t get much love for the way it costs plenty of sensible people a lot of foolish spending. This Valentine’s, why not take a more financially prudent stance?

First things first: have the important talks as a couple
The number of couples who get engaged or take their relationship to the next level around Valentine’s Day is significant… and it’s worth noting that those who talk about money beforehand save themselves stress later and enjoy better conversations around their future together.

This needn’t be a scary affair. Light some candles, pour some of your favourite drinks and talk openly. What would you like your future to look like and how do you feel about having the money for these dreams? What is important to each of you and how do you perceive value? How do you feel about debt and how do you feel about savings?

It’s not about obsessing over money (which is highly unromantic…) – quite the opposite. It’s about speaking about what is important to you and understanding how you can now achieve these goals together. It’s about how you can be more, together (which is considerably more romantic…).

Conversations like these are gold – for both your rands and your relationship.

Discuss the benefits of potentially skipping Valentine’s Day
If you’ve already had the big talks mentioned above, try having a relaxed conversation about skimping on the Valentine’s plans to save money for other things. Now that you have a better idea of what you value together, you can work together to new and bigger goals. Or, instead of splashing out on gifts, consider just spending on creating a special memory together that will outlast any trinket.

For a Valentine’s present, give the gift of empowerment
If you do want to spoil your loved one, try thinking out of the box. One romantic gestures I’ve heard of happened to a divorced woman with three young kids. She met a man and after being together for a few months, he gave her a gift: he’d invested in a Kruger rand on behalf of each of her children with a goal to having enough money for each of their tertiary educations.

Often, we think of perishable items when we think Valentine’s Day – flowers, chocolates and the like. But what message is that really communicating? By taking out an investment on behalf of your significant other, you are saying ‘you are valuable and worth investing in’.

As a couple, do you meet with your financial advisor together? Money is one of the most common stressors in the world and can cause enormous anxiety in relationships.

This Valentine’s day, why not think long term and have a new conversation?

For many of us, the first conversation any one has with us about our financial planning is around retirement. Either retirement is too close and is a tad on the stressful side to chat about (particularly if we’re a little behind in our investment strategy) or it’s just far enough away for us not to take it seriously.

This blog has been written as a conversation sparker for you, your family, friends and colleagues. Stats show us that over 90% of South Africans are not prepared for retirement – which means we have to be having better conversations around retirement.

Hopefully these thoughts will help!

Do you feel you’re 5-10 years away from retiring?
Are you aware of what type of annuity you currently have? Many people in this stage of life have had an investment vehicle in place for so long that it’s possible that they haven’t assessed how efficient it will be for their current situation.

Statistics from the Association of Savings and Investments South Africa (Asisa) show a whopping 92 percent of retirees currently invest in living annuities instead of guaranteed annuities because it allows for ‘leftover’ retirement money to go to loved ones after the client passes away.

The rising cost of living means that these living annuities are far more likely to run out of money before the client runs out of lifespan. Chat to your planner today about what type of annuity you have.

Do you feel you’re 10-20 years away from retiring?
This may be the time for a wake-up call – the vast majority of South Africans do not have enough money to retire with enough money for even a modest lifestyle for the rest of their lives. Just South Africa, a retirement income specialist, found that two-thirds of those surveyed in this category thought themselves to be good at financial planning but, in reality, less than a third had done any calculations about how much they would need annually in retirement. Start to think about your annual budget (not monthly) and see if it fits within your savings. A rough starting point would be to say that if, for example, you would need R250k per year, and have R3m invested; you have enough for about 12 years of retirement, not even taking escalation, losses or increased living expenses into account.

Do you feel you’re more than 20 years away from retiring?
The retirement game is changing and the conversations we initiate with our planner and friends need to change too. With increased longevity, changes in work culture and the ever-rising cost of living, 20-year retirements after 30-year careers are going the way of the dodo.

At this point in your life you need to think about how you would like your money to work for you should you wish to travel, study or retire. In the future, most people will either have a second, less-stressful career in their golden years (these people are currently known as ‘the silver surfers’) or they will work in cycles, taking shorter periods of some years off from working in more organic cycles, then going back to work or a different kind of work after a hiatus, rather than getting all their work and then all their resting done at once.

Either way, the world is changing at a faster pace than ever before and there are options available to virtually every scenario. Having constructive conversations about your expectations are powerful and helpful!

If ever there was a universal cheat-meal week… it must be the week between Christmas day and New Years day. And that’s for the most diligent – if we’re honest, most of us view it as a two-to-three week cheat…

Everyone could use a boost of healthy eating come January!

Here, we’ve rounded up the best things to eat – and how to eat them – to improve concentration, creativity and productivity.

Egg in your face
Pass on the sugary cereal and have that most traditional of breakfast foods early: eggs. Not only do eggs have a decent amount of protein and energy-enhancing Vitamin B, they also have something called choline. Studies have shown that choline can help improve your memory long-term and your focus short-term because it’s a vitamin that actually increases the size of the neurons in your brain, helping them fire the electrical signals across synapses needed for thought better and faster. The result? Your thinking is sharper, quicker and more agile.

Eat less, more often
After your egg-rich breakfast, make sure not to gorge on big meals for the rest of the day but instead snack on smaller meals more often than the traditional three ‘square’ ones a day. That full stomach feeling contributes to secretion of serotonin, which makes you sleepy, and bloating which directly affects cognitive function. It can also spike your blood sugar, depending on what’s in the meal, and therefore lead to a crash both physically and mentally long before office hours are over.

Pump iron
So what should you eat? Iron-rich foods aside from red meat (which most bodies find difficult to process and which can ramp up your cholesterol long term) are great choices for work lunch. Iron increases the amount of oxygen getting into the bloodstream, body and brain. The result is improved alertness, mood and energy.

Sup on salmon
Fish may be a bit whiffy for the office or first thing in the morning, but the so-called ‘oily fish’ such as salmon, trout and mackerel are among the best things you can eat for a great work day. While most foods boost your energy levels or general health, these actually supercharge your brain – they contain omega 3 vitamins, plus iron and vitamin B, all of which combine together into a powerful cocktail that optimises memory recall, mental focus and reasoning. Truly a smart food choice.

No matter how busy your day gets – don’t forget to eat healthily!

If your to-do list is stressing you out now that the holidays are over, worry no more.

Sometimes productivity is not about trying to squeeze even more things into each day, which is still stubbornly refusing to be any longer than 24 hours, but rather about working smarter. Not harder – especially so soon after you’ve left your sun lounger.

We all want to be more productive when January rolls around, but can we be? Here are five tips… just in time for the new work year.

Print out your big picture goals and hang them
… and then keep moving them around. It’s so easy to miss the forest for the trees when the minutiae of each work week becomes your main focus. Prominently display your larger goals in an attractive way that gets you fired up. Then, because we’re masters at getting used to our environments, move it somewhere different each month.

Use a productivity app
Using a great productivity app is like outsourcing, but less stressful. Check out the suggestions for the best ones in last week’s post!

Monitor meetings
Everyone’s pet hate is work meetings. We can each count on one hand the number that have yielded real progress and decisions, yet have countless ones each month. Entering any meeting, clearly state the objectives of that meeting and it’s end time. Even better – try to have as many meetings on Skype, Zoom or telephonically, as possible.

Try the ‘pomodoro’ technique
So named because of the inventor’s egg timer being in the shape of a tomato (‘pomodoro’ in Italian), this technique means switching of all devices and alerts for a 45 to 50-minute period and working as hard as you can in that finite time on one task only Then, for 10 minutes, you take a mandatory break. This technique harnesses focus and it’s truly amazing the difference it makes.

Drink more
… water, that is. Research has proven that dehydration – which most of us have, let’s be real – can impair cognitive functioning by as much as 30 percent! Purchase yourself a glass bottle that is 500-750ml, and keep it on your desk at all times – filled with water.

Productivity is not an easy skill to master, which is why brand new books on this subject line the shelves of every book store throughout the year. Take each day at a time and be kind to yourself.

We’ve all done it – made New Year’s resolutions and never fulfilled them. This January, why not get some little helpers instead? These apps will make 2019 a breeze.

The ‘be more mindful’ resolution substitution: Kyō
Most productivity apps help you try and cram more into your already busy day, but Kyō does the opposite. The Kyō app helps the user to reflect at the end of each day on what was truly important, what was truly accomplished in terms of what really matters in life and to be grateful for it all. Not everyone is into journaling, so a big plus is that you can record voice notes, add pictures and write stuff. There’s even help from the pros in terms of interviews with meditation experts, gurus and fellow entrepreneurs who’ve got it right.

The ‘exercise more’ resolution substitution: Done
The best way to create a healthier lifestyle is to cultivate a habit. Done makes this a cinch, with a visual and un-preachy interface that allows you to input your new desire habit or habits and then tick them off each day, getting a sense of accomplishment as you do. The best part? It tracks your progress and sends you reminders and reports.

The ‘better productivity at work’ resolution substitution: Forest
Sometimes, to get more done, we need to do less, by blocking out distractions while focusing on a task. The famous ‘pomodoro technique’ is a great way to do this, but no one really likes to hear an egg timer or alarm clock going off all the time and making you think you’re back in school. Enter Forest: a timer-based app that blocks your use of all other apps on your phone for that set time and, instead of ringing annoyingly, makes a tree grow while you work. Over the set time it sprouts branches and leaves that will die if you look at your phone too early. It’s a great reminder that you’re not just finishing that one report – you’re trying to cultivate a lifestyle and make something grow.

The ‘be more informed’ resolution substitution: Overcast
Experts the world over agree that being well-read is the number one key to thought leadership in an uncertain future. At least an hour a day. But who has time? You need audiobooks or, even better, podcasts. Get informed on your morning commute, at the gym or standing in queues at the grocery store. Curate all your best ones and find new favourites with Overcast.

You’re welcome.