The Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC) – Filing of annual returns
All companies (including external companies), dormant companies and close corporations are required by law to lodge their annual returns with CIPC within a certain period of time every year.
An annual return is a statutory return in terms of the Companies and Close Corporations Acts and therefore MUST be complied with.
Failure to do so will result in the Commission assuming that the company and/or close corporation is not doing business or is not intending on doing business in the near future. Non-compliance with annual returns may lead to deregistration, which has the effect that the juristic personality is withdrawn and the company or close corporation ceases to exist.
Companies have 30 business days from the date that the entity become due to file annual returns before it is in non-compliance with the Companies Act.
Close corporations have from the first day of its anniversary month up until the month thereafter to file annual returns before it is in non-compliance with the Close Corporations Act.
Annual returns can only be filed electronically.
Driving Financial Compliance in the Digital Era
The Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC) embraces international best practices and the impact of the use of iXBRL when submitting Annual Financial Statements (AFS) online and in improving efficiencies. iXBRL will make it easier for Companies to report their financial information in an electronic format. CIPC mandated the digital reporting system for all qualifying entities from 1 July 2018.
iXBRL is an Inline eXtensible Business Reporting Language for electronic communication of business information providing major benefits in the preparation, analysis, communication of Annual Financial Statements.
Digital reporting in the format of iXBRL will assist companies with filing their Annual Financial Statements to egress from a PDF reporting format to a more structured format. This will ultimately reduce the burden of multiple submissions to different regulators.
iXBRL Programme Objectives are:
To reduce the administrative burden on businesses when they report financial information to government for regulatory compliance. Achieving this goal requires reducing duplication and inconsistency in business information reported to various government agencies - thus, a national (local taxonomy becomes a necessity; and
To achieve regulatory compliance to accomplish the mission of the government agency. The CIPC's primary mission is to provide business and financial information to investors for better transparency and to reduce the administrative costs of reporting businesses.
Contact our offices to ensure your annual returns are filed timeously to avoid deregistration.
