Johannesburg - Government collected more tax revenue than expected for the last fiscal year, but it was tighter controls by the taxman on individuals that contributed to the increase.
Minister of Finance Pravin Gordhan announced at the start of the Easter weekend that some R8bn more had been collected in the 2009 tax year than reflected in the adjusted February revenue target of R590.4bn. This was despite periods of economic contraction in the year.
From February 2009 to February this year there was a budget deficit of R69bn.
Oupa Magashula, commissioner of the South African Revenue Service (Sars) observed that in July last year measures were introduced to increase levels of collection. These measures included an increase in administrative fines which helped raise compliancy among taxpayers.
Sars also relied heavily on third-party data to ensure there was correspondence between the amounts taxpayers declared and information held by Sars.
All of these measures led to an additional R24bn for the fiscus.
Tax revenue fell more than 4% (R26.8bn) year-on-year compared with that in the 2008/09 tax year.
Gordhan says South Africa's revenue situation compares favourably with other developed and developing countries.
Provisional figures indicate that personal income tax totals R204.5bn.
This is 4.8% more than the R195bn in the 2008/09 tax year, and this despite more than a million jobs having been lost.
Provisional tax for individuals increased by almost R2bn, just more than R1bn of which had already been collected by February.
Company tax is some 18% less than in the previous year and provisional collections stood at R135.2bn at midnight on March 31.
Gordhan adjusted company tax revenue downwards to R130.5bn during the February budget.
Provisional VAT revenue for the past tax year was R147.9bn, compared with the previous year's R154.3bn.
The decline is ascribed to taxpayers keeping their purses closed. Consumer expenditure remained low, said Gordhan.
Revenue from the fuel levy grew more than 17% to R29bn, while customs revenue declined 15.5% to R19bn.
"Other" tax revenue rose almost 17% to nearly R26bn.
Magashula said the agricultural sector had a good income year while mining and commodity-driven sectors had suffered hardships.
The manufacturing sector's tax contribution fell almost 15% in the past year and that of mining 55%.
The transport sector's tax contribution was 30% down to R2bn, while that of construction was 27% up, to R5.8bn.
Gordhan says economic recovery is slow and it will take the country a while to return to the growth levels of a couple of years ago.
He expected the fiscal deficit to reduce to 4% of the gross domestic product over the next three years.
- Sake24.com
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