January 4th local time, according to local media reports in South Africa, the South African Ministry of Finance and Taxation (SARS) released annual tax statistics for 2020. This data reviews the tax collection and tax refund information in South Africa over the five years from 2015 to 2019.
South Africa’s annual tax revenue in 2019 was 355.8 billion South African rand (about 1582 billion yuan), an increase of 68.1 billion (5.3%) compared with 2018 and South African rand ($1B). This increase is mainly contributed by personal income tax.
Of South Africa’s nine provinces, Gauteng (49.6%), Western Cape (15.5%) and KwaZulu (13.3%) are the most tax-paying provinces.
This also reflects the position of Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban, the three major cities in South Africa, in the country.
South African middle class mainly resides in Johannesburg, of which 580,464 assessed taxpayers in Johannesburg have an average annual income of R512,785 (about$35k).
The report shows that although the revenue generated by the tax system should be synchronized with the economy, South Africa’s tax revenue growth on average is higher than economic growth.
This is mainly due to South Africa’s increasingly sound tax administration system and the increasing awareness of South African national tax.
