- Title
- The distiction between debt and equity from an income tax perspective
- Creator
- Duna, Nomfundo
- Subject
- Income tax -- South Africa
- Date Issued
- 2020
- Date
- 2020
- Type
- Thesis
- Type
- Masters
- Type
- MCOM
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/10948/47791
- Identifier
- vital:40375
- Description
- The debt bias gives rise to real and disadvantageous consequences for many jurisdictions. South Africa is by no means any safer from its dilutive and evasive effect. This bias in favour of debt arises as a result of the difference in the tax treatment of debt and equity which is found in the South African tax legislation. At the centre of the difference in tax treatment is that under the domestic tax legislation, interest incurred on debt is deductible to the extent that the debt was used to fund income generating assets which dividends payable to equity investors is not. From a South African perspective, the classification of a funding as debt or equity funding for tax purposes is not exhaustively dealt with within the tax legislation as it is not always that these terms are defined in the tax legislation. In some instances, common law is relied upon to classify funding as debt or equity funding. Furthermore, this classification and the resultant tax treatment of funding as either debt or equity becomes even more complicated when you consider the various tax avoidance mechanisms that taxpayer corporations use to take advantage of the debt bias. Tax avoidance mechanisms such as the uptake of excessive debt to increase interest deductions and the use of hybrid debt instruments has necessitated the inclusion of targeted anti-avoidance provisions that operate to either reclassify the nature of the funding or the return on such funding, or in some instances deny interest deductions. These targeted anti-avoidance provisions contain definitions of the type of funding that they apply to. In the South African context, the South African tax legislation contains provisions in respect of anti-excessive debt rules contained in section 23M and 23N as well as hybrid instruments contained in sections 8E,8EA, 8F and 8FA that aim to counter the extent to which taxpayers exploit the debt bias to avoid tax.
- Format
- vii, 64 leaves
- Format
- Publisher
- Nelson Mandela University
- Publisher
- Faculty of Business and Economic Sciences
- Language
- English
- Rights
- Nelson Mandela University
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NMU School of Management Sciences
| Thumbnail | File | Description | Size | Format | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| View Details Download | SOURCE1 | Duna, N 205014453 Treatise April 2020.pdf | 1 MB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download |