Below are some of the regularly used Section 29A, SARS and Tax specific acronyms or abbreviations.

These are abbreviations that are often used in tax and related meetings, but are not clearly explained or defined at those meetings, because it is often assumed that others know what they mean.

You might have to attend a meeting, but you are either new to insurance tax, or it is not your regular job, and you are not up to date with all the terms.

In that case you don't want to miss everything because you didn't understand the meaning of something.

Someone might send an e-mail saying something like:

"We need to meet to discuss the IFRS 17 impact on our company. The TLAB and EM was published last week, and we need to evaluate the proposals in order to decide if we want to make comments to NT or not, but we have to adequately prepare for transition.

Here is a brief summary of our current situation:

We only pay tax in the CF.
We made the once-off election a few years ago, and transferred all our IPF and CPF policies to the RPF.
We still have I minus E losses in the PHF's, and we do not know if, or when we will be able to utilise these.
Withe the implementation of IFRS17, the FSV reduced and therefore the difference between the MVA and FSV will increase, which means the transfers to the CF will increase.
We can set-off the phase-in amount against historic BOTs over the six year phase-in period.
The UPF and RPF still have transfer credits.
The definition of adjusted IFRS has changed, and this impacts the level of zeroization, if applicable. We will need to analyse our LRC/ARC balances to determine this.
LIC will most likely have a credit balance, so the LRC number becomes relevant.
We do not have a CGT risk on transition and all our CIS' and REITs are in the CF.

Please feel free to contact me before the meeting if the above is not clear."

If you get an e-mail like the above, it is intimidating enough to deal with the issues, and one shouldn't also have to wonder what the abbreviations mean.

So here are some abbreviations that you will likely come across often in the insurance tax environment:

(Some of these may also be in the other "Definition" sections)

1. BAU - Business as Usual
2. BCR - Binding Class Ruling
3. BGR - Binding General Ruling
4. BPR - Binding Private Ruling
5. BOT - Balance of Transfers
6. CbC - Country by Country
7. CF - Corporate Fund
8. CGT - Capital Gain Tax
9. CIS - Collective Investment Scheme
10. CPF - Company Policyholder Fund
11. CSM - Contractual Service Margin
12. CTC - Contributed Tax Capital
13. DAC - Deferred Acquisition Costs (relating to commissions)
14. DRL - Deferred Revenue Liability (relates to prepayments)
15. DWT - Dividend Withholding Tax
16. EM - Explanatory Memorandum
17. FSV - Financial Soundness Valuation
18. IAS - International Accounting Standard
19. I-E - Income less Expenses
20. IPF - Individual Policyholder Fund
21. IFRS - International Financial Reporting Standard
22. IFRS 4 - IFRS Standard dealing with Insurance Contracts (see note 1 below)
23. IFRS 9 - Investment contracts with no element of significant insurance risk (see note 2 below) 
24. IFRS 17 - IFRS Standard dealing with Insurance Contracts (see note 1 below)
25. IT - Income Tax
26. IT14L - Income Tax Return
27. IT34 - Income Tax Assessment
28. IWT - Interest Withholding Tax
29. LIC - Liability for Incurred Claims
30. MTM - Mark to Market
31. NT - National Treasury
32. OCR - Outstanding Claims Reserve
33. Para 19(3) - Paragraph 19(3) of the Fourth Schedule to the Income Tax Act
34. PO - Public Officer
35. PHF - Policyholder Fund
36. PT - Provisional Tax
37. REIT - Real Estate Investment Trust
38. RFC - Request for Correction
39. RFR - Request for Remission
40. RPF - Risk Policy Fund
41. SOQS - SARS Online Query System 
42. SDL - Skills Development Levy
43. STT - Securities Transfer Tax
44. TCC - Tax Clearance Certificate
45. TCS - Tax Compliance Status
46. TLAB - Taxation Laws Amendment Bill
47. TP - Transfer Pricing
48. UPF - Untaxed Policyholder Fund
49. VDP - Voluntary Disclosure Programme
50. VOL - Value of Liabilities
51. YE - Year-end
52. YOA - Year of Assessment
    
53. YOL - Year of Liability

Note 1: Difference between IRFS 4 and IFRS 17 - The consistency of application of accounting treatments to areas such as revenue recognition and liability valuation.

Note 2: IFRS 9 specifies how an entity should classify and measure financial assets, financial liabilities, and some contracts to buy or sell non-financial items. In the context of section 29A, these are generally referred to as Investment Contracts.