Real Estate Investor Magazine South Africa October 2015 | Page 58

FOREX

How to make the most of

SARB’s
relaxed exchange control regulations
BY ANDREW RISSIK

In April this year, the National Treasury announced an increase in the
annual foreign investment allowance from R4 million to R10 million per
individual per year. In this article, Sable Forex MD Andrew Rissik explains
what this means for local and foreign investors as well as how they can take
advantage of this increase.

W

ith the increase of the personal allowance
from R4 million to 10 million per
individual, investors are now able to send
up to R11 million abroad to any account they like
(when taking into account the R1 million discretionary
allowance). If you are married to a South African
citizen, this amount increases to R22 million per
year, taking into account the combined personal and
discretionary allowances of you and your spouse.
In addition to this, there were a raft of other positive
exchange control threshold changes announced this year:
• The corporate investment limit that authorised
dealers can process has been increased from R500
million to R1 billion per year.
• Dispensation of credit card usage will be extended
to corporations - currently this is only available
for individuals.
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OCTOBER 2015 SA Real Estate Investor

• The annual R1 million individual single
discretionary allowance subcategories have been
scrapped, allowing for the discretionary use of all
funds in this category.
As we examined last year, offshore purchases are
considered imports and will not be included in your
yearly discretionary allowance. This means that the
online purchase of, for example, an iPad, won’t count
against your R1 million allowance.
What these changes mean for you
Until this year, the South African Reserve Bank’s
(SARB) stranglehold on money movement out of
South Africa made it difficult to invest large amounts
of money abroad. Previously, the per-person allowance
was increased to R4 million per year, allowing a transfer
of up to R8 million if your spouse was also a registered
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