South African Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana cut spending and adjusted the tax mix in a revised budget presented to lawmakers on Wednesday. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This came three weeks after the nation\u2019s coalition government rejected his initial plan. Here\u2019s a rundown of how you may be impacted:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Consumers<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The National Treasury will raise the value-added tax (VAT) by a 0.5 percentage point on May 1 and by the same margin on April 1 next year, which would bring the rate to 16%. <\/p>\n\n\n\n While the proposed increase is lower than the 2 percentage-point hike envisioned in the previous iteration of the budget, it still threatens to stoke inflation and deter consumer spending. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Retailers and manufacturers are among the businesses that will likely be impacted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Individual taxpayers<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n To help compensate for lower-than-anticipated VAT revenue, Treasury said that personal income-tax brackets won\u2019t be adjusted to take account of inflation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n That will leave most people with less money in their pockets, and those who earn regular salaries and can\u2019t restructure their packages will be the most affected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Smokers and drinkers<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Godongwana proposed raising excise duties on alcoholic beverages, pipe tobacco and cigars by 6.8%, and on cigarettes and vaping products by 4.8% from April 1.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Travelers<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Over the next three years, the Department of Home Affairs will be allocated R4.9 billion less than was planned in the February 19 Budget. <\/p>\n\n\n\n That will hamper efforts to digitize its systems and hire more staff. It is a setback in plans to make border posts more efficient and speed up visa issuance, passports and identity documents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Infrastructure Companies<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The government plans to spend R1.03 trillion on roads, water and energy projects and other infrastructure through March 2028. <\/p>\n\n\n\n That should boost demand for cement, steel and other building materials and provide work for construction and engineering companies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The investment should make it easier to do business, bolster investment and spur economic growth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Motorists and commuters<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Treasury intends to leave fuel levies unchanged to mitigate the inflationary effect of higher petroleum prices. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The estimated tax relief arising from the concession will amount to about R4 billion. Levies paid to the Road Accident Fund, which compensates accident victims, were also left unchanged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Civil Servants<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The government is sticking to a deal to lift state workers\u2019 wages by 5.5% in 2025-26 and by the inflation rate over the following two years. It also retained plans to offer senior staff early retirement packages. <\/p>\n\n\n\n A proposal from the country\u2019s biggest labour group to pause contributions to a defined benefit pension fund for state workers was rejected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Democratic Republic of Congo<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Treasury committed R5 billion to the military to fund a peacekeeping mission in eastern Congo, where Rwanda-backed rebels have wreaked havoc. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Many South African troops have died in the central African nation, and regional groups haven\u2019t managed to broker a ceasefire so far.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The 2025 National Budget is bad news for customers and individual taxpayers, with more tax pressure on the table. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":768138,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13716],"tags":[1850,3796],"class_list":["post-816611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-budget-speech","tag-bloomberg","tag-national-treasury"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/816611","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\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=816611"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/816611\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":816627,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/816611\/revisions\/816627"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/768138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=816611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=816611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=816611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}WINNERS<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n