Very complicated amendments

Every year, the Income Tax Act and related Acts are amended in South Africa.

These amendments differ from the usual in that:

• They come into operation on (sometimes many) different dates.

• Amendments to previous amendments are often published, rather than the text being amended afresh.

• Sometimes, the amendments to previous amendments only affects the date on which the amendment comes into operation.

These instructions have the South African Income Tax Act in mind, but they can be used for other complex amendments as well.

The aim of these instructions is to allow a team of people to collaborate on applying complicated amendments. To that end, the following are important principles to keep in mind:

• Proceed with caution (more than usual): The research on all the amendments should be completed before any changes are made on the platform, including changes to the timeline or to any tasks. The amendments to amendments can really play havoc with what you think is reasonable to do under normal circumstances. And the same provision can be amended multiple times at multiple dates across two or three different amendment Acts.

• Over-communicate: Everything that has been done needs to be recorded, because if it's unclear at any point in the process how far along we are or whether something was in fact done, everything needs to stop and be checked before we can start again. Make comments in the spreadsheet or on the relevant task to update your future self as well as your teammates.

That being said, if you follow the instructions in this guide and work carefully and methodically, it's very doable to break down the mammoth task into bit-size chunks and get it done, and it can be very gratifying!