{"id":205342,"date":"2017-10-16T19:00:57","date_gmt":"2017-10-16T17:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=205342"},"modified":"2017-10-16T16:38:26","modified_gmt":"2017-10-16T14:38:26","slug":"how-much-medical-aid-holders-will-be-losing-to-the-nhi-next-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/finance\/205342\/how-much-medical-aid-holders-will-be-losing-to-the-nhi-next-year\/","title":{"rendered":"How much medical aid holders will be losing to the NHI next year"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Friday,\u00a0Dr Mark Blecher, chief director for Health and Social Development at the National Treasury confirmed <\/a><\/strong>that medical aid tax credits would be phased out within the coming months, to fund the National Health Insurance (NHI) plan.<\/p>\n

While it is not known exactly when these changes will be implemented,\u00a0Blecher warned that it would be low and middle-income earners who would be the hardest hit.<\/p>\n

According to SARS’ official documentation on medical aid tax credit, this phasing out could equate to medical aid members forfeiting anything between R300 and over R1,000<\/strong> a month depending on the number of dependents on the plan, the scheme itself, and who the main policy-holder is.<\/p>\n

While the impact of this plan is relatively slight for a single medical-aid holder (R303 a month, or R3,636 a year), the effects will have a more significant impact for a family of four (R1,014 a month or R12,168 a year).<\/p>\n

It should be noted that while tax credits were the main funding proposal suggested to fund the NHI, health minister Aaron Motsoaledi has indicated<\/strong> <\/a>that other mandatory charges are also likely to \u00a0be implemented.<\/p>\n

These additional charges and the final implementation date of the NHI have still not been confirmed.<\/p>\n

What are medical aid tax credits?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A Medical Scheme Fees Tax Credit (also known as an \u201cMTC\u201d) is a\u00a0rebate\u00a0which reduces the normal tax a person pays.<\/p>\n

This rebate is non-refundable and\u00a0any portion that is not allowed in the current year\u00a0can\u2019t be carried over to the next\u00a0year of assessment, according to SARS.<\/p>\n

The MTC effectively replaced part of the tax deduction that was specifically allowed for medical scheme contributions, and applies to fees paid by a taxpayer to a registered medical scheme (or similar registered scheme outside South Africa) for that taxpayer and his or her “dependents” (as defined in the Medical Schemes Act).<\/p>\n

“This MTC seeks to bring about greater fairness and help achieve greater equality in the treatment of medical expenses across all income groups,” SARS said.<\/p>\n

Money back<\/b><\/p>\n

The following fixed monthly amounts are based on the 2016\/2017 and 2017\/2018 years of assessment.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0amounts may vary depending on the number of months in the tax year that a taxpayer and dependents are members of a medical scheme fund.<\/p>\n

\n
\n\n\n\n\n\n
Tax credit per month<\/th>\n2017<\/th>\n2018<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
For the taxpayer who paid the medical scheme contributions<\/td>\nR303<\/td>\nR286<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
For the first dependant<\/td>\nR303<\/td>\nR286<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
For each additional dependant (s)<\/td>\nR204<\/td>\nR192<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n

Read:\u00a0Medical aid tax credits to be phased out within the coming months<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some South African medical aid holders can expect to lose out on as much as R10,000 when the NHI comes into effect next year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":205418,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11121],"tags":[26,12033,3246],"class_list":["post-205342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance","tag-headline","tag-nhi","tag-sars"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205342"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205342\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":205468,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205342\/revisions\/205468"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/205418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}