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Gov collects almost 6 billion bucks in tax
The National Treasury released their latest tax report yesterday.
The headline figure is that the total amount of tax collected in 2007/2008 period was R 599.3 billion or 29.1 percent of the GDP.
This is a massive whacking whopper of a number and 95.6% was collected nationally rather than at provincial or local government levels.
National tax revenues come from three major taxes: personal income tax (PIT), corporate income tax (CIT) and value-added tax (VAT). On top of this is added the fuel levy, excise and custom duties. This makes up the bulk of tax revenues.
The government is to establish a task team to help guide the country through the expected difficult year that is to come. The Mail and Guardian quoted Trevor Manuel as saying that the meeting held to establish the task team 'asked for a social dialogue'.
Those tax billions will need to be spent wisely in order to stave off the worst effects of the crisis. The Dispatch also carried this story and stated that the task team was called for by business, labour and the government.
Business Report tells us that the task team will report back to President Kgalema Motlanthe early in February 2009. The South African Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SACCI) released its index of business confidence for November 2008, and the Mail and Guardian reports that it is ticking upwards.
This may be a perception that the international financial crisis was having less of an effect on South Africa than was originally expected. The Dispatch noted that the index went up by 2.5 points in November to 86.7 after a massive drop of 5.7 index points in October. However 2009 is expected to be a hard year.
Business Times reported on Standard and Poor's, the ratings agency, viewpoint that South Africa faced a 'challenging' time next year. They are of the opinion that there will be weaker growth in the economy next year and that 'fundamentally, 2009 will be a difficult year'. The Sowetan also ran this story pointing out that growth had fallen to its lowest level in 10 years, in the third quarter of this year. There was a statement that we should not expect interest rate cuts to quickly kick start the economy. iAfrica looked at this story in detail.
Justmoney says you should cut back on your spending, because the experts believe it is going to be a tough one next year, massive tax revenues or not. So now is the time to get a savings account, get a better credit card and budget better. If you are already feeling the pressure, get some debt consolidation and if you can't keep up with your debt payments, speak to a debt counsellor sooner rather than later.