South Africa Tax Season Returns Stats

More than a million tax returns have been submitted since the start of tax season on July 1, the SA Revenue Service (Sars) said on Monday.

It had received a record number of 1,001,162 income tax returns for the 2012 tax season by 7.30am on Monday, 22 days after filing season opened.

Sars said it took five weeks to reach the one million mark last year.

"For the corresponding period last year, Sars had received 681,497 tax returns. By 7.30am this morning [Monday], 319,665 more returns had been submitted compared to the same period last year," it said in a statement.

This was a 62 percent increase.

The highest number of submissions, 82,225, was on July 2, when Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan announced the start of tax season.

Sars said the higher rate of submissions and faster processing of tax returns had enabled it to pay over R3 billion in refunds to 501,096 taxpayers in 22 days.

"This is a significant, direct injection into the domestic economy and household incomes. This is in comparison to refunding 323,197 taxpayers to the value of almost R2bn in the previous tax season."

There had been a strong migration to electronic filing via branches or eFiling.

Only 3796 returns had been manually submitted, a decrease of 32 percent from last year.

A total of 620,564 returns had been submitted via eFiling, which was 32 percent higher than the same period last year.

New systems were being tested including filing through tablets and smartphones. The deadline for manual submissions is September 28, and for electronic submissions November 23.

Source : iAfrica.com
Tags : tax, tax season, tax returns, south africa tax, SARS, Tax returns stats

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Nokia distribution centres to close

Nokia Oyj (NOK1V) will close two of its four regional sales offices in China, as part of a restructuring plan the company announced last month to halt mounting losses from plunging smartphone sales.

Nokia will shut offices in Chengdu and Shanghai and consolidate operations at a northern center in Beijing and a southern hub in Guangzhou, Anna Shipley, a Beijing-based Nokia spokeswoman, said in an e-mail today. The moves will eliminate jobs, she said, without providing details.

Chief Executive Officer Stephen Elop is reorganizing Nokia after market-share gains by Apple Inc. (AAPL)'s iPhone and Samsung Electronics Co. devices led to a slump in sales and four straight quarterly losses. The company said June 14 it would cut as many as 10,000 jobs globally and close facilities.

"As part of the announcement and planned changes that we made on June 14, we are reviewing some elements of our China business," Shipley said in the e-mail. Nokia plans to continue "nationwide" market coverage in the country, she said.

Nokia shares fell 0.8 percent to 1.536 euros at 2:13 p.m. in Helsinki trading.

The company shipped more than 2 million Lumia smartphones running on the Windows Phone operating system globally in the first quarter, while Apple sold 35.1 million iPhones.

Nokia's handset shipments declined 24 percent in the first quarter, allowing Samsung to overtake the Espoo, Finland-based company as the world's biggest mobile-phone maker, researcher IDC said in

May. Nokia's global share in the first quarter was 20.8 percent, trailing Samsung's 23.5 percent. Apple had 8.8 percent of the global mobile-phone market.

Source :Bloomberg.com
Tags : Nokia,smartphones,market share
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Calls fifth priority for smartphone users

It may not surprise you all that much, but new data from O2 indicates that people much prefer to use their mobile phones these days for anything other than talking to people.

The UK mobile operator has revealed that making calls has become the fifth most frequent use for the newly-networked generation of smartphone users in terms of time spent. So what trumps talking? Let's take a look.

It's (not) good to talk…

Browsing the Internet is the most frequent activity on smartphones these days, accounting for 25 minutes a day, while more specifically, checking social networking sites accounts for 17.5 minutes of our time. Listening to music (15.5) and playing games (14.5) were also more popular than good old-fashioned voice calls, which apparently people only spend a little more than 12 minutes a day doing.

It's worth noting that these are all averages – I know I spend a hell of a lot more than 25 minutes a day on the mobile Internet. Though I probably spend more like 8 minutes a day on average using it as a telephone.

According to O2's 'All About You' report, which was based on a survey involving 2,000 people, we spend around 2 hours a day on average using our smartphones, which also includes other activities such as testing, emailing, reading books and taking photographs.

"Smartphones are now being used like a digital 'Swiss Army Knife', replacing possessions like watches, cameras, books and even laptops," says David Johnson, General Manager Devices for O2 in the UK. "While we're seeing no let-up in the number of calls customers make or the amount of time they spend speaking on their phones, their phone now plays a far greater role in all aspects of their lives."

O2 commissioned the report to mark the launch of the Samsung Galaxy SIII, the all-singing, all-dancing device that looks set to cement the Korean mobile manufacturer's position at the forefront of the smartphone market. The report also found that smartphones are replacing other possessions including alarm clocks, watches, cameras, diaries and even laptops and TVs as they become more intuitive and easier to use for things beyond calls.

• Over half (54%) say they use their phones in place of an alarm clock
• Almost half (46%) use their smartphone instead of a watch
• Two-in-five (39%) use their phone instead of a dedicated camera
• Over one quarter use their phone instead of a laptop (28%)
• One in ten have gotten ride of a games console in favour of their smartphone (11%)
• Perhaps indicative of where things are moving, one in twenty smartphone users have switched to use their phone in place of a TV (6%) or reading physical books (6%)

"We're starting to see more and more phones being developed that interact with their users in new and interesting ways," adds Johnson. "Intelligent voice recognition and eye tracking are making phones even easier to use and we know our customers will love them."

Source: thenextweb.com

Tags : smartphones,smartphone users,O2,UK phone users

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Fuel Price drops by 85 cents in SA

The latest fuel price decrease may not bring as much relief to consumers, an independent consumer activist said on Tuesday.

The price of petrol dropped by 85 cents a litre at midnight; the biggest decrease of the year.

Consumer activist Ina Wilken told Eyewitness News that despite the decrease, everything else still costs more.

Wilken said things will not get easier for the consumer any time soon.

“It’s a very difficult time for consumers to even try to save and the problem is the ongoing increase in fuel and the high electricity prices.

“Everything is just increasing all the time.”

Food prices

Wilken confirmed there are no decreases when the fuel price drops.

“The problem is the moment the petrol price increases everything else increases but the retailers just couldn’t be bothered – they’ve already added it to their product and they don’t bother bringing it down.”

The new price of 95 grade petrol in Gauteng fell to R10,82 rand/litre, while the wholesale diesel price decreased by 5.9 percent to R10.11 rand/litre.

Food prices

Wheat farmers in the Overberg claimed that food prices are out of their control as wheat production remains costly.

It is unlikely the latest fuel price drop will see the price of products on the shop shelves decrease.

Riviersonderend farmer Schalk Viljoen said the fuel price will need to drop even more before it has any significant impact.

“We must remember that fuel prices increased tremendously over the past three months.

“The fuel price might be coming down but it is still high and I don’t foresee that we can produce cheaper in the near future.”

Viljoen said the bread price might even go up.

“Bread prices will probably increase because internationally higher wheat prices make our prices go up as well and that‘s because of the panic state in America due to the drought.”

(Edited by Clare Matthes)

Source : iAfrica.com
Tags : fuel, fuel price, petrol, petrol price, petrol news, petrol price decrease,food prices

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