{"id":757249,"date":"2024-03-05T16:14:59","date_gmt":"2024-03-05T14:14:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=757249"},"modified":"2024-03-05T16:15:06","modified_gmt":"2024-03-05T14:15:06","slug":"how-petrol-and-diesel-taxes-have-shot-up-in-south-africa-2000-to-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/757249\/how-petrol-and-diesel-taxes-have-shot-up-in-south-africa-2000-to-2024\/","title":{"rendered":"How petrol and diesel taxes have shot up in South Africa: 2000 to 2024"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>South African motorists have seen fuel taxes shoot up at rates far higher than inflation for most of the last two decades &#8211; with a decision by National Treasury to keep taxes unchanged in 2024 a welcome break.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Petrol and diesel prices in South Africa have reached unbearable levels, with another hike kicking in on Wednesday (6 March), where prices will increase by R1.20 per litre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In January 2004, 95 unleaded petrol cost R3.69\/litre and diesel cost R3.35\/litre. 20 years later (January 2024), 95 unleaded petrol cost R22.49\/litre and diesel was R20.63\/litre. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In March, this will climb further still to R24.45\/litre and R22.42\/litre, respectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-wp-embed is-provider-businesstech wp-block-embed-businesstech\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"IPeJrIq4po\"><a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/energy\/756505\/here-is-the-official-petrol-price-for-march-5\/\">Here is the official petrol price for March<\/a><\/blockquote><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);\" title=\"&#8220;Here is the official petrol price for March&#8221; &#8212; BusinessTech\" src=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/energy\/756505\/here-is-the-official-petrol-price-for-march-5\/embed\/#?secret=TOVHSyq9iy#?secret=IPeJrIq4po\" data-secret=\"IPeJrIq4po\" width=\"500\" height=\"282\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>This jump is the result of a combination of different factors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There are up to 13 different charges that make up and influence the prices of regulated petroleum products in South Africa, which the energy ministry views under two primary components &#8211; external and internal factors. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The external factors include the dollar price of the product on the global market, which is multiplied by the US$\/R exchange rate, and additional costs such as insurance, storage, and transport.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Briefly looking at international factors, the state of the rand has been a crucial component &#8211; with the rand trading at R6.13 to the US dollar in 2000 as opposed to over the R19 mark in 2024. <\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><a  data-lightbox=\"post-image\" href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/image-10.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"717\" height=\"260\" src=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/image-10.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-757387\" style=\"width:478px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/image-10.png 717w, https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/image-10-300x109.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 717px) 100vw, 717px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Exchange rate of the rand to the US dollar. Graph: PoundSterling<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n<p>The internal factors include the rand-based retail and oil company marketing margins, transport costs, taxes and levies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The taxes<\/strong> <strong>and levies<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Whenever purchases are made on petroleum products in the country, just under one-third of it goes towards the government pot, which is calculated on a per-litre basis. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is predominantly made of the fuel tax (roughly 18% of current prices) and the Road Accident Fund (RAF) (around 10% of current prices). <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Other smaller tax and levy contributions include the slate, demand side management, customs, petroleum and carbon fuel levies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to the Automobile Association (AA), these\u00a0two main levies deliver around R138 billion in revenue for the government, with the national treasury estimating approximately R92 billion of this coming from the general fuel levy over the 2023\/24 financial year and the rest to the RAF.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The revenue generated from the fuel tax is used to fund various government expenditure programmes, while the funds from the RAF tax goes to the government&#8217;s Road Accident Fund, which is used for the compensation of accident victims.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"flourish-embed flourish-chart\" data-src=\"visualisation\/17016876\"><script src=\"https:\/\/public.flourish.studio\/resources\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Looking in rand terms at fuel taxes, petrol users have seen a 335.98% increase since January 2000, while diesel users have seen a 400.66% increase in contributions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Additionally, contributions towards the RAF have gone up by over 1400% for petrol users and 2016% for diesel users for the same period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While petrol consumers have always paid slightly more towards the fuel levy, diesel and petrol consumers began paying the same contribution towards the RAF since 2002, with its larger increases seen from around 2009.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"flourish-embed flourish-chart\" data-src=\"visualisation\/17017472\"><script src=\"https:\/\/public.flourish.studio\/resources\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>The RAF has seen the most dramatic year-on-year hikes over the past 25 years, jumping over 60% in 2002.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>RAF hikes have predominantly sat well over the inflation rate, with that being the same case for fuel levies from 2004 to 2006 and 2009 to 2021.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>South African motorists collectively breathed a sigh of relief when finance minister Enoch Godongwana announced in his budget speech that there would be no increases to the general fuel levy for the 2024\/25 financial year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The AA has said that tax and levy hikes &#8220;above inflation [hurts] the poorest of the poor in the country [as] many people rely on public transport which, if the price of fuel increases, will need to recover these costs by passing them on to consumers.&#8221; <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The association is also concerned that &#8220;these levies are seen as the \u2018go-to\u2019 taxes for easy increases by government,&#8221; however are happy that no new increases for the near future have been announced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/energy\/756505\/here-is-the-official-petrol-price-for-march-5\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/energy\/756505\/here-is-the-official-petrol-price-for-march-5\/\">Here is the official petrol price for March<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>No fuel levy and RAF hikes for 2024 &#8211; but South African motorists have been bled dry by above-inflation increases to these taxes for the last 20 years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":101,"featured_media":665025,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[9094,3994,2171,9818],"class_list":["post-757249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-fuel-levy","tag-petrol","tag-petrol-price","tag-raf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757249","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\/101"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=757249"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757249\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":757735,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757249\/revisions\/757735"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/665025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=757249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=757249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=757249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}