{"id":821812,"date":"2025-04-23T21:50:54","date_gmt":"2025-04-23T19:50:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=821812"},"modified":"2025-04-23T21:50:54","modified_gmt":"2025-04-23T19:50:54","slug":"high-taxes-chase-rich-people-out-of-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/finance\/821812\/high-taxes-chase-rich-people-out-of-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"High taxes chase rich people out of South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Award-winning economist Dawie Roodt said wealthy South Africans have two main requests \u2013 taking their money out of the country and paying less tax.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The high taxes and unstable local economic environment have reached such concerning levels that many wealthy individuals are leaving South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Roodt shared this information <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=VJq0f3IFZsg\">during a Biznews interview<\/a> about the planned value-added tax (VAT) increase and South Africa\u2019s tax regime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He highlighted that South Africa has a very narrow tax base, with a small number of companies and individuals paying most of the country\u2019s taxes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/dailyinvestor.com\/finance\/72277\/0-1-of-south-african-companies-pay-72-of-all-company-income-tax\/\">South Africa\u2019s 2024 tax statistics revealed<\/a> that only 1,051 companies pay 72.3% of all company income tax in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Companies with taxable income greater than R100 million constituted 0.1% of the total number but contributed 72.2% of taxable income and 72.3% of assessed tax.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/dailyinvestor.com\/finance\/79226\/1-5-of-south-africans-pay-61-of-all-income-tax\/\">The same goes for personal income tax<\/a>. 978,140 South Africans, or 1.5% of the population, pay 60.9% of all personal income tax.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Even more concerning is that only 235,542 South Africans, or 0.4% of the population, pay 33% of all personal income tax.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Roodt said that this is unsustainable and that South Africa should focus on economic growth, which will create more taxpayers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He explained that the current mixture of taxes in South Africa is harmful to economic growth and must be changed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe are losing our rich people. They are emigrating or very aggressively structuring their tax affairs because taxes are so high,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He said as an asset manager at Efficient Wealth, people who come into his office tell him two things:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>I want to take my money out of the country.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>I want to pay less tax.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>South Africa is already on the wrong side of the Laffer curve, meaning tax increases will not increase tax revenue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A particular concern is high company taxes. \u201cSouth Africa\u2019s company tax of 27% is far higher than global standards, which makes the country less competitive,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe have to reduce company taxes to make South Africa more attractive as a global investment destination. This will improve economic growth and increase employment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Higher employment means more South Africans will pay value-added and personal income taxes, removing the pressure on the current small tax base.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He advocated for a total revamp of South Africa\u2019s tax regime. \u201cIt needs to be simplified, and some taxes need to be reduced and changed,\u201d Roodt said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Award-winning economist Dawie Roodt said wealthy South Africans have two main requests \u2013 taking their money out of the country and paying less tax.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":807895,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11121],"tags":[1459,22370,7438],"class_list":["post-821812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance","tag-dawie-roodt","tag-personal-income-tax","tag-vat"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/821812","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=821812"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/821812\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":821813,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/821812\/revisions\/821813"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/807895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=821812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=821812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=821812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}