This is how many people earn more than R1 million in South Africa

 ·15 Jan 2025

There are over 425,000 millionaires in South Africa, who cover around 50% of all assessed income tax paid in the 2023/24 tax year.

The latest stats from the South African Revenue Service (SARS) show that the country’s progressive tax regime is in full effect, with the majority of income tax being paid by the country’s richest individuals.

The latest tax data from SARS shows that the taxman collected R2.2 trillion in gross tax revenue in the 2023/24 fiscal year, R87.0 billion or 4.2% more than in the prior year.

Personal Income Tax (PIT) revenue remained the biggest contributor to the tax haul, accounting for 35.7%—or R641 billion—of the total tax collected.

SARS assessed approximately 88% of individual income tax returns for the report, which equates to around 6.6 million taxpayers.

Of these assessed taxpayers, 341,630—just 5.2% of the those assessed—had a taxable income of over R1 million, contributing R226.4 billion to PIT (45% of the R500 billion assessed).

Individual Taxpayers, assessed 2023/24

Looking at provisional taxpayers, there are a further 83,755 (16.4% of those assessed) who had a taxable income over R1 million, contributing R86 billion to the PIT, representing 78% of the R110.5 billion provisional income tax paid in.

Provisional Taxpayers, assessed 2023/24

Notably, millionaire numbers are growing – up by 42,647 from 2022/23 for individual and 16,215 for provisional taxpayers.

The number of individuals expected to submit Income Tax returns was 7.5 million for the 2023 tax year. This is from a registered taxpayer base of over 27 million individuals.

According to SARS, its statistical data only accounts for taxpayers with taxable income who have an assessment, which explains the gap between the figures above and the 7.6 million projected, as well as the registered tax base.

Estimates from National Treasury show that there are about 7.7 million registered taxpayers receive below the threshold of taxable income (R91,000) and would not require an assessment.

SARS has also increased the threshold of those taxpayers who are not required to submit a tax return over the years, from R250,000 in 2013, to R500,000 from 2019.

The revenue service said that these changes have affected the accuracy of expected filing rates for subsequent years.

Other developments, like auto assessments, have also changed these expectations.


Read: The people who pay the most tax in South Africa

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