With the 2019 Budget Speech approaching fast, Finance Minister Tito Mboweni is expected to unpack the government’s plan to balance expenditures for the year. But what can South Africans expect to take from his address for their own financial planning?
A good starting point would be to ask what the budget is all about, as said by Errol Meyer, a legal specialist at Standard Bank Financial Consulting.
“From a government perspective it’s all about matching income and expenditure and how are we going to meet expenditures,” he explains. When you look at the budget from a personal level, you should do focus on the same thing.
Meyer suggests that things that South Africans really have to look out for in the Budget Speech this year is taxes. “Income tax, capital gains tax, tax-free investments and retirement annuities are all instrumental in helping us budget, meet our goals and ensure cash flow,” he explains.
Rather than fearing any tax hikes, Meyer’s says our real enemy is inflation and that the tax brackets won’t be adjusted according to the inflation brackets. Once again this could mean less disposable income for the individual and a personal budget upset.
Meyer suggests asking a similar question to assess your investments: “Will I be able to beat inflation over time?” He says it’s important to have a goals-based financial planning philosophy that will help you see your investment through over a longer period. “If my goal is to have education funds in 10 years’ time, I would suggest a strategy that would beat inflation.”
Hear more from Errol Meyer on what to take from the Budget Speech 2019 in the podcast below:
This post is sponsored by Standard Bank produced by BrandStudio24 for Fin24.