2008 Tax Statistics

The 2008 Tax Statistics is a joint publication by the National Treasury and the South African Revenue Service (SARS). This publication is a first of its kind and the intention is to produce it on an annual basis.

The publication is intended to fill a void with respect to the availability of disaggregated tax revenue data. Many commentators, academics and analysts have requested tax revenue data at a more disaggregate level. It is hoped that this publication will form the basis for more in-depth analysis of tax revenue data.

The publication provides an overview of tax revenues for the period 2002/03 to 2005/06. In some instances aggregate revenues for earlier and later periods, where available, are also provided. The data is based on tax revenue collections and customs duties with the focus on three main tax instruments i.e. Personal Income Tax (PIT), Corporate Income Tax (CIT) and Value Added Tax (VAT).

This publication should provide useful information that will augment existing data sources and help to gain a better understanding of the structure of our economy, income sources and tax revenues.

It should be noted that the detailed information in chapters 2 and 3 are based on tax returns that have been assessed at the time the data was extracted early in 2008. Hence, the (lower) numbers in later years should be seen in the context of a lower rate of assessment at the time the data was extracted. Subsequent publications will report on revised data, given the additional assessed information that will become available.

The publication consists of the following chapters:

· Chapter 1 is a summary of aggregate tax revenue collection trends in South Africa;

· Chapter 2 is an overview of assessed Personal Income Tax (PIT) revenues of registered individual taxpayers, with information on tax revenues by taxable income group, age, gender, source of income, fringe benefits, allowances and other deductions. It should be noted that employees with an annual taxable income below R60 000 are not required to register with SARS (they may, but the majority do not). This means that many of the more detailed tables relating to personal income tax do not include information on these taxpayers;

· Chapter 3 is an overview of Corporate Income Tax (CIT) with information on corporate income tax by taxable income group, sector and type of business entity;

· Chapter 4 is an overview of Value Added Tax (VAT) with a breakdown of VAT receipts and refunds by sector and type of business entity;

· Chapter 5 provides information on the customs value of imported goods by product type as well as VAT, customs duties, and ad valorem excise duty revenues on imported goods.

Both the National Treasury and SARS hope to improve on subsequent publications and would welcome comments on the types of data that should be included in future editions. Such improvement in the quality of data, and its availability, will also enhance the tax policy process, which will be better informed as a result of such data. The publication also promotes greater transparency in the tax policy process.

See the attached annexure for a sample of the type of information contained in this publication.

An electronic version of this publication and the excel tables are available on the websites of National Treasury (http://www.treasury.gov.za/) and the South African Revenue Service (SARS) (http://www.sars.gov.za/).