No direct incentives – including cash and shopping vouchers – are to be offered by Asata’s wholesale members to the consultants and staff of the association’s retail members. Instead, all incentives are to be offered through and approved by the management and/or head offices of the retail members to ensure good corporate governance and statutory and regulatory compliance.
This is according to a new position statement, approved by Asata last week (October 23).
The new code of conduct, which is meant to drive compliance, is a win for Asata retail managers who have been requesting such a statement for many years now.
“The truth of the matter is that incentives are here to stay but how they are offered and how we ensure that every stakeholder understands the implications needs some clarification,” said Asata ceo, Otto de Vries. “To this end, Asata researched and highlighted compliance issues in terms of our Code of Conduct, the CPA and tax rulings. We then engaged both retail and wholesale members for input to ensure consensus on the way forward.”
The agreement was acceptable to all players and was one that could easily be extended to include all suppliers of travel-related products and services, he said.
He said that, according to the new code, whenever possible incentives should take the form of an educational or familiarisation trip to support the professionalising of the industry and to improve the knowledge of consultants.
Also, added Otto, it would be the responsibility of the recipients to declare the value of the incentive, whatever form it may take, as part of their annual tax returns “as receipt thereof constitutes remuneration as defined by SARS”.
“Should the consultant of the retail member receive the incentive via their employer, the employer needs to issue a tax certificate at the end of the year reflecting the total value. Alternatively, the wholesale member can apply for a ruling from SARS, which will exempt the recipient from declaring the incentive.”
- Hilka Birns and Natasha Tippel
For more on this story, go to TNW, October 30.
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