2024 Tax Statistics Report Highlights
National Treasury and SARS released the 2024 Tax Statistics report, covering tax revenue and return data for the 2020–2024 tax years. While the results seem encouraging, it also demonstrates the ongoing struggle for businesses to make profit while meeting increasing compliance obligations.
Below is a summary of key highlights you need to know.
Total Tax Revenue
Tax revenue increased from R1.36 trillion in 2019/20 to R1.74 trillion in 2023/24, growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6.4% over five years. This represents a slightly higher growth rate than in previous years (6.1%).
Personal Income Tax (PIT)
The number of individuals registered for income tax grew to 27.1 million by March 2024, up 4.3% from the previous year. Out of these SARS expected 7.6 million to submit tax returns.
Gauteng leads with the most assessed taxpayers at 35.5% of total assessments.
52.6% of assessed taxpayers were male, while 47.4% were female bringing more balance between genders.
Taxpayers reported a combined taxable income of R2.3 trillion, with tax liability of R499.9 billion, resulting in an average tax rate of 21.3% - slightly less than in the previous year’s 21.5%.
Company Income Tax (CIT)
Shockingly, of the 1.17 million companies assessed, only 20.7% reported positive taxable income, while 54.6% reported zero taxable income, and 24.7% reported losses.
Large companies, with income over R200 million made up a minute portion - 0.2% - of those with positive taxable income. Despite this small portion, these large entities still managed to contribute 66.5% of the total CIT.
The largest contributions were from the Financial Intermediation, Insurance, Real-estate, and Business-services sector, accounting for 22.8% of assessed companies and 32.8% of tax assessed.
Value-Added Tax (VAT)
80.9% of active VAT vendors were companies and close corporations, contributing 93.2% of VAT payments and receiving 92.2% of VAT refunds.
Sole proprietors made up 11.7% of VAT vendors but contributed only 1.7% of payments and received 0.7% of refunds.
Import VAT and Customs Duties
Import VAT and Customs Duties together accounted for 19.3% of Total Tax Revenue, higher than the 17.7% five-year average.
Import VAT was mainly collected from Machinery and Electronics (28.9%), Chemical Products (12.2%), and Vehicles, Aircraft, and Vessels (10.6%).
Customs Duties were driven by Vehicles, Aircraft, and Vessels (26.1%), Textiles and Clothing (15.9%), and Machinery and Electronics (13.1%).
Other Taxes and Collections
Other taxes and collections included Capital Gains Tax (CGT), Transfer Duty, Mineral and Petroleum Resources Royalty (MPRR), Southern African Customs Union (SACU) payments, and Diesel refunds. The following statistics were notable:
Mineral and Petroleum Resources Royalty (MPRR) payments declined by R9.4 billion (36.9%) due to lower platinum and coal prices, offset partially by improved gold and iron-ore prices.
Southern African Customs Union (SACU) South Africa contributed 97.5% to the SACU Customs Revenue Pool and received R79.7 billion (50% of the shared revenue pool).
Read more in the Tax Statistics 2024 report.
