Good Day, I would like to know if a trust can be registered for income tax without having a bank account? If so, is there any link or information from SARS to support this? Thank you.
Important:
This answer is based on tax law for the tax year ending 28 February 2020.
Answer:
We are not sure why the trust doesn’t have a bank account. The Trust Property Control Act, in section 10, states that “whenever a person receives money in his capacity as trustee, he shall deposit such money in a separate trust account at a banking institution or building society.”
Section 23(2) the Value-Added Tax Act requires of the person applying to be registered to have opened a bank account. Without that the person would not be able to apply to be registered as a vendor.
The Income Tax Act however doesn’t have a similar requirement. We understand that SARS, when the trustees apply to have the trust registered as a taxpayer, requires this information, but it should be possible to register the trust without that. There is, to the best of our knowledge, no information from SARS to support this. The trust will have to apply and then explain to SARS, in the application, that it doesn’t have a bank account and possibly, also why not.