Question NW3997 to the Minister of Employment and Labour
04 December 2023 - NW3997
Le Goff, Mr T to ask the Minister of Employment and Labour
Whether, with regard to the administrative burden placed on businesses by the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) insofar as it relates to the inefficient collection of UIF submissions through payroll extracts and the uFiling portal, he will undertake to cut red-tape for businesses and construct a joint implementation agreement with the SA Revenue Service (SARS) to eliminate the UIF reporting burden by incorporating it into the SARS EMP201 and EMP501 processes, which already collect the information in a vastly more comprehensive manner; if not, why not; if so, what are the relevant details?
Reply:
This is an excellent and progressive question which will take the Fund far if implemented and agreement between the two entities are secured. At one level it increases compliance and also ensure that UIF has the necessary data at the time of claim processing.
In terms of status, 98% of UIF contribution is already collected by SARS and this is managed through service level agreement. The only remaining part of the agreement is the sharing of data contained in the EMP201 and EMP501.
The Acting Director General, Dr Moemi has already started engagement with the SARS Commissioner to consider a number of options including discussions around the mainframe and data sharing mechanism while mindful of the POPIA requirements.