Self-assessment
UIF Self-Assessment (Unemployment Insurance)
11 yes/no questions on your duties as an employer under the Unemployment Insurance Acts: registering, deducting and paying contributions, declaring employees every month, and the documents employees need to claim. You get a score for each area and a list of gaps with what to do about each one.
1. Registration and who is covered
1. Are you registered with the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) as an employer, and do you have your UIF reference number?
Employers register as soon as they start employing people. SARS says employers who are not registered with SARS for employees' tax must register with the UI Commissioner. (UI Act, UI Contributions Act)
2. Have you registered every employee, including part-time, fixed-term and domestic workers, and not counted any as exempt without checking?
Employees who work fewer than 24 hours a month for you are generally excluded, so please check the current rule. Domestic workers are covered. (UI Act s3)
3. Do you tell the UIF when an employee starts, leaves or when their details change?
(UI Act, uFiling)
2. Contributions
1. Do you deduct 1% of each employee's remuneration for UIF and add 1% from the employer, up to the monthly remuneration ceiling?
Sources give the ceiling as R17,712 a month, which caps each contribution at R177.12. Check the current figure with SARS or the UIF. (UI Contributions Act)
2. Do you pay the contributions to SARS or the UIF by the seventh of the following month (or the last business day before it when the seventh falls on a weekend or holiday)?
(UI Contributions Act)
3. Is the remuneration you use for UIF the same as the amounts in your payroll and your PAYE returns?
(UI Contributions Act)
4. Do you pay over the amounts you deducted from employees, and never use them for another purpose?
(UI Contributions Act)
3. Declarations, records and claims
1. Do you submit a monthly declaration of your employees and their remuneration (through uFiling or your SARS return)?
(UI Contributions Act, uFiling)
2. Do you keep payroll and UIF records for each employee, including hours, remuneration, contributions and dates of employment?
(UI Act, UI Contributions Act)
3. When an employee leaves, do you give them a UI-19 form or equivalent declaration so they can claim benefits?
If the employer does not update uFiling, an employee may be unable to claim the benefits they are entitled to. (UI Act, UI-19)
4. Do you know that employees can claim benefits for unemployment, maternity, parental, adoption, illness and death, and do you help them with the documents the UIF needs?
(UI Act)
Sources
Turn these gaps into tracked tasks
Assign owners and due dates, keep the evidence, and show your progress to clients and auditors.