51. Bodies of persons, corporate or unincorporate (other than companies)

(1)     Subject to the provisions of section 46, where any body of persons, whether corporate or unincorporate (other than a company), carries on or is to carry on any enterprise-

(a)     such body shall be deemed to carry on such enterprise as a person separate from the members of such body;

(b)     registration of that body as a vendor shall be effected separately from any registration of any of its members in respect of any other enterprise;

(c)     liability for tax in respect of supplies by the body shall be determined and calculated in respect of the enterprise carried on by it as an enterprise carried on independently of any enterprise carried on by any of its members, and any refund relating to the body’s enterprise which is payable in terms of section 44 shall be made to that body; and

(d)     the duties and obligations imposed by this Act on any vendor or other person shall, as respects the enterprise carried on by that body, be performed by it separately from the duties and obligations imposed on any of its members.

(2)     Where any such body is a partnership or other unincorporated body and is dissolved in consequence of the retirement or withdrawal of one or more (but not all) of its members or the admission of a new member and a new partnership or unincorporated body comes into being consisting of the remaining members of the dissolved partnership or body, as the case may be, or such remaining members and one or more new members and the new partnership or body continues to carry on the enterprise of the dissolved partnership or body as a going concern, the dissolved partnership or body and the new partnership or body, as the case may be, shall (unless the Commissioner, having regard to the circumstances of the case, otherwise directs) for the purposes of this Act be deemed to be one and the same partnership or body, as the case may be.

(3) Subject to the provisions of section 46, every member of a partnership or joint venture shall be liable jointly and severally with other members of the partnership or joint venture for performing the duties of the partnership or joint venture in terms of this Act and paying the tax imposed by this Act on the partnership or joint venture in respect of supplies made by the partnership or joint venture while such member was a member of the partnership or joint venture: Provided that this subsection shall not apply to any such member of a partnership who, in relation to that partnership, is a partner en commandite or a special partner, as defined in the Special Partnerships’ Limited Liability Act, 1861 (Act 24 of 1861), of the Cape of Good Hope or in Law No. 1 of 1865 of Natal, who has not held himself out as an ordinary or general partner of the partnership concerned.

[Subsection (3) substituted by section 14 of Act 22 of 2018]