The SA Institute of Chartered Accountants (Saica) has urged taxpayers to take advantage of new tax laws to transfer property out of companies and trusts into their own names to avoid hefty tax charges, says a report in today’s Business Day. Taxpayers who failed to take advantage of the laws before the end of December next year could face adverse tax consequences, warned Saica’s project director for Tax, Muneer Hassan. He said failure to take advantage of the tax concessions could expose owners, when they eventually transferred residences to their own names, to a combination of capital gains tax, transfer duties, secondary tax on companies or the new dividends tax if the disposal occurred after the dividends tax came into effect. He said if a primary residence was kept in an individual’s own name, that taxpayer would qualify for a R1.5m exclusion where the proceeds on the disposal of the property exceeded R2m. The report notes the Taxation Laws Amendment Act gives taxpayers a third window of opportunity to transfer property into their own name.