Your Responsibility
This only applies to you if you have a company [(Pty) Ltd or a LTD company] or a close corporation.
You will have to make an application to the Companies and Intellectual Properties Commission of SA (CIPC) in order to get your company registered.
All companies must have a Memorandum of Incorporation (MOI) which sets out the rules agreed by the shareholders for the management and maintenance of the business. Private companies may be registered with a standard or a customised MOI.
Why Secretarial Services?
All companies (including external companies) and close corporations are required by law to file their annual returns with the CIPC on an annual basis, within a prescribed time period. The purpose for the filing of such annual returns is to confirm whether a company or close corporation is still in business/trading, or if it will be in business in the near future.
Therefore, if annual returns are not filed within the prescribed time period, the assumption is that the company or close corporation is inactive, and as such CIPC will start the deregistration process to remove the company or close corporation from its active records. The legal effect of the deregistration process, is that the juristic personality is withdrawn and the company or close corporation ceases to exist.
It is very important that you DO NOT LET THIS HAPPEN as you can essentially lose your entire business. A good accountant will make sure that your annual duties never fall behind.