You can claim back up to 20% of your Skills Development Levy (SDL) simply by submitting an Annual Training Report (ATR) and Workplace Skills Plan (WSP) to the Seta with which your business is registered by 30 April each year. These payments, which are called mandatory grants, are paid by the Seta every quarter.
If your business isn’t claiming mandatory and discretionary grants, it means other businesses that are claiming are benefiting from the levies you pay. In addition, by upskilling their staff, they are giving themselves a competitive edge.
In fact, even companies that do not have to pay an SDL can still access these grants as long as they submit their ATR and WSP.
In addition, you can claim back more of your contribution in the form a discretionary grant. This grant is allocated at the sole discretion of the Seta and depends on the availability of funds, adherence to specific criteria, and approval from the Seta’s accounting authority.
The SA Revenue Service allocates your business’s SDL to the Seta with which you are registered. The Seta disperses the levy to mandatory grants, discretionary grants, the National Skills Fund, as well as the Quality Council for Trades and Occupations and the Seta’s administration costs.
At this point, you might be thinking, “Getting back some of my SDL contributions sounds good, but I’m too busy trying to run my business to set up training programmes and obtain bursaries, or deal with the admin involved in claiming back contributions.”
This is why you need an external skills development facilitator such as Workforce Solutions, which will take care of all the administration necessary to ensure your business complies with the legislation and can claim back some of your SDL contributions.
Here are two examples of how companies benefited financially from Workforce Solutions’ expertise:
- Company A, which has 17 employees and an annual payroll of R3 684 938 million paid an annual SDL of R36 849. It received a mandatory grant of R5 895 after Workforce Solutions submitted an WSP/ATR on its behalf. Plus, because the company granted an employee a bursary, it was able to claim a discretionary grant of R25 920. So, in total, Workforce Solutions enabled Company A to get back R31 815 of the R36 849 it paid as an SDL.
- Company B, which has 15 employees and an annual payroll of R5 644 789, paid an SDL of R56 448. Workforce Solutions’ submission of an WSP/ATR resulted in a mandatory grant of R9 032. Granting bursaries to two employees enabled Workforce Solutions to claim a discretionary grant of R35 840 on the company’s behalf. This means Company B got back a total of R44 872.
Range of services
Much more is required to claim these benefits than submitting an WSP and an ATR, as important as these are. Workforce Solutions provides a comprehensive range of services that are essential for fulfilling the requirements to claim mandatory and discretionary grants.
Workforce Solutions will:
- Develop and review your organisation’s skills development policy.
- Liaise between your organisation and the sector Seta.
- Provide advice on the quality assurance requirements set by the sector Seta.
- Establish, train and consult with your organisation’s skills development committee.
- Conduct skills audits, to identify the skills and knowledge that your employees have and those which they lack.
- Facilitate a training needs analysis, which will identify priorities for employee training and development. This will help to determine not only what skills are missing or underdeveloped, but also which employees need training first.
- Align your organisation’s skills development activities with the Sector Skills Plan, and the employment equity and broad-based black economic empowerment requirements.
- Implement your organisation’s training plan by identifying suitable training courses and providers, booking training, and managing payment to trainers.
- Set up and manage discretionary grant programmes.
- Where necessary, arrange and manage transfers from one Seta to another.
More information
To find out more about how Workforce Solutions can benefit your organisation, contact Stephanie Engelbrecht at workforcesolutions@moonstoneinfo.com or 021 883 8000.
Good Day
How do I register with Seta to claim SDL for the employees?
Good day. You register with the Seta covered by your industry. Each Seta has its own website that should tell you which forms you need to fill in.
I will like to Request Your Assistance With Claiming my SDL.
Please visit the Workforce Solutions page to see whether you qualify: https://www.moonstone.co.za/services/workforce-solutions/
How do I claim skills development levy if I am fired to my previous job
You cannot claim back the SDL.
Does a training company need to be registered with SETA for a company to be able to claim from SDL?
If a company (training provider or otherwise) is paying Skills Development Levies then SARS has automatically registered them with a SETA and they will need to complete their WSP|ATR in order to claim back Mandatory Grants.
If they are not levy paying only, then will they need to register with the relevant SETA.
I have a similar question to Jason. Let’s say “Company X” pays the SDL and they run a series of training programmes in a year and pay a third-party training provider, as defined in the SWP/ATR, does the training provider need to be registered with the SETA or have any certain credentials/recognition?
No, they do not. But it is beneficial to deal with accredited training providers.
Hi can i claim sdl if retrenched. Since this was deducted i have never had any trainig done.
Hi, who pays for the SDL, as it is getting deducted from my salary, but i can’t use it to further my career as my employer doesn’t want me to do further training.