02 Jan

All Companies: Prepare for the Mandatory New CIPC Compliance Checklist

Having your company deregistered by the CIPC will have serious consequences for your company, for your business, and for you personally – so you should take the new “compliance checklist” requirement seriously.

Until you complete the checklist you won’t be able to complete your company’s annual return, and then your problems will really start because CIPC will decide that you have gone out of business and deregister the company.

Voluntary until now, completing the checklist will be mandatory for all companies and close corporations from 1 January 2020. Your first step will be to establish when your next annual return will become due …

The CIPC (Companies and Intellectual Property Commission) has announced that its new “compliance checklist” requirement, voluntary until now, becomes mandatory for all companies and close corporations from 1 January 2020.

You must complete the checklist before submitting your annual return. So firstly check when your due date for the annual return is – for companies you will have 30 business days from the day after its date of registration, whereas for close corporations you will have the two months from the first day of the registration month until the end of the following month.

Then log on to the CIPC website and find what CIPC calls its “new user-friendly service” under “e-Services for Customers”.

If you run into problems take professional advice immediately. You really don’t want to drop the ball on this! If you can’t complete the compliance checklist, you can’t submit your annual return, which will put your company at risk of deregistration because CIPC assumes that your company has stopped doing business.

Deregistration means your company ceases to exist, with drastic negative consequences for your company, for its business operations, and for you personally.