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The National Treasury and the South African Revenue Service (SARS) have released the Annual Tax Statistics for 2020.
The 2020 edition provides an overview of tax revenue collection and tax reporting information for tax years 2016 through 2019, as well as tax years 2015/16 through 2019/2020.
“The 2019 technical recession led to slow growth in revenue collection, culminating in a downward revision of revenue estimates,” said SARS.
“Although the income generated by the tax system moves in tandem with the economy, on average, the growth of tax revenues has been greater than economic growth.”
Tax revenue collected amounted to R1 355.8 billion, with a year-on-year growth of R68.1 billion (5.3%), mainly supported by the Personal Income Tax (PIT), which grew by R35, 3 billion (7.2%).
Personal taxes
Geographical and demographic analysis of the taxpayer assessments that had been assessed at the end of October 2020 yielded some interesting results:
- 1,776,301 (40.9%) of the assessed taxpayers were registered in Gauteng;
- 580,464 of the assessed taxpayers lived in the Johannesburg metro and were taxed on an average taxable income of R512,785;
- 1,171,410 (27.0%) of the taxpayers evaluated were between 35 and 44 years old;
- 2,352,902 (54.2%) of the taxpayers evaluated were men and 1,985,021 (45.8%) were women;
- The assessed taxpayers had aggregate taxable income of R1.6 billion and a tax liability of R360 billion. Their average tax rate was 22.5% compared to 21.6% in the prior fiscal year;
- Income from wages, salaries and other remuneration, as well as pensions, overtime and annuities, represented 77.6% of total taxable income.
This graphic shows what income tax collection looks like geographically distributed:
This graph shows how income tax collection is distributed between men and women:
This graph shows how the taxable income of the 2.9 million taxpayers shifted between the tax brackets due to increases in taxable income and other market factors:
Other taxes
Statistics on corporate tax reveal that of the 780,480 companies evaluated at the end of July 2020 for fiscal year 2018, 25.2% had positive taxable income.
In addition, 46.6% had a taxable income equal to zero and the remaining 28.2% reported a assessed loss.
In 2019/20, 78.5% of active VAT providers were companies or public limited companies. They contributed 92.6% to internal VAT payments and accounted for 90.9% of VAT refunds.
Although individuals (sole proprietors) represented 16.1% of VAT providers, they contributed 2.7% of national VAT payments and received 1.2% of VAT refunds.
Import VAT and customs duties represented 13.3% and 4.1% of total tax revenues for the year, respectively; resulting in an aggregate 17.4% that was slightly below the 17.6% average during the previous five fiscal years.
In 2019/20, capital gains tax (CGT) of R14.1 billion was collected, of which R6.4 billion was attributable to individuals and trusts and R7.7 billion to companies.
This reflects a significant decrease of R3.8 billion (21.3%) compared to the R17.9 billion collected in 2018/19. A total of R156.7 billion has been raised since the introduction of CGT in October 2001, with R72.5 billion from individuals and trusts and R84.2 billion from companies.
Read: 5 Things South African Taxpayers Should Know When SARS Owes You A Refund
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