Individual taxpayers<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Godongwana scrapped previously announced plans to raise an additional R20 billion in taxes after revenue collection beat expectations, thanks mainly to a commodities boom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Personal-income-tax brackets and medical tax credits will be adjusted for inflation, the first time in three years such relief has been provided. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Capital-gains-tax and donations-tax exemption thresholds were also raised, as were contribution limits for tax-free investment savings accounts and retirement funds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Small businesses<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n Asset disposals by small businesses of as much as R15 million will be exempt from capital gains tax, a 50% increase on the current limit. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Value-added tax registration thresholds will also be raised, while turnover taxes for micro businesses will be adjusted to take account of inflation. \u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Construction companies<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The government is ramping up investment in logistics, energy, water and sanitation projects, with the budget providing for R1.07 trillion in infrastructure investment over the next three fiscal years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n With the government and state companies lacking implementation capacity, a slew of contracts should be up for grabs.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n The security forces<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The police force and the military were each allocated an additional R1 billion to help them tackle organised crime. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bondholders<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The National Treasury said its borrowing requirement has declined \u201cmarkedly\u201d since a year ago, in part because it collected more tax than anticipated, and that the budget deficit will come in slightly lower than expected. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Those developments should continue to drive bond yields down, which will benefit existing debt holders.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Smokers and drinkers<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Godongwana raised taxes on alcohol and tobacco, increases that have long been standard fare in the budget. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Duties on beer, wine, spirits and cigarettes will all rise by 3.4% with effect from April 1.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Motorists and commuters<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The budget provides for increases in the general fuel levy, the Road Accident Fund levy and carbon taxes. In total, taxes charged on a litre of 93 octane petrol will rise by 21 cents to R6.58. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The effect on pump prices should be more than offset by lower international crude prices, although there\u2019s no certainty that those will hold.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Defaulting municipalities <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n State power utility Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd. will take over the distribution of electricity in municipalities that fail to settle outstanding debts \u2013 a measure the Treasury says is needed to ensure revenue is collected and reliable services can be maintained. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The adoption of the so-called Distribution Agency Agreements could deprive local authorities of a key source of income. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The municipalities\u2019 arrears to Eskom have steadily risen, with those participating in a so-called Municipal Debt Relief Program owing Eskom R85.2 billion. \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n South African Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana delivered his annual budget to lawmakers in Cape Town on Wednesday\u2014this is who came off best.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":816531,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13716],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-852182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-budget-speech"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/852182","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=852182"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/852182\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":852186,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/852182\/revisions\/852186"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/816531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=852182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=852182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=852182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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