Taxation in South Africa

rdf:langString Taxation in South Africa

rdf:langString Constituents of South African taxation receipts for the tax year 2018/19.

rdf:langString Customs duties

rdf:langString Dividends

rdf:langString VAT

rdf:langString Company income tax

rdf:langString Personal income tax

rdf:langString Fuel levy

rdf:langString Other direct and indirect taxes

rdf:langString Specific excise duties

rdf:langString right

rdf:langString Taxation may involve payments to a minimum of two different levels of government: central government through SARS or to local government. Prior to 2001 the South African tax system was "source-based", where in income is taxed in the country where it originates. Since January 2001, the tax system was changed to "residence-based" wherein taxpayers residing in South Africa are taxed on their income irrespective of its source. Non residents are only subject to domestic taxes. Central government revenues come primarily from income tax, value added tax (VAT) and corporation tax. Local government revenues come primarily from grants from central government funds and municipal rates. In the 2018/19 fiscal year SARS collected R 1 287.7 billion (equivalent to US$ 86.4 billion) in tax revenue, a figure R71.2 billion (or 5.8%) more than that from the previous fiscal year. In 2018/19 financial year, South Africa had a tax-to-GDP ratio of 26.2% that was only slightly more than the 25.9% in 2017/18. The cost of collecting tax revenue has remained somewhat constant; decreasing slightly from 0.93% of total revenue in 2016/17 to 0.89% in 2017/18, while the 2018/19 financial year showed a further improvement in the cost of revenue collection, which dropped to 0.84%. Three of the provinces of South Africa contributed 77.8% of the total tax revenue: Gauteng (49.0%), Western Cape (15.5%), and KwaZulu-Natal (13.3%). The provinces with the smallest contributions were the Northern Cape (1.3%), followed by Free State (3.2%) and North West (3.3%)