2024 Budget Speech Update
Compiled by the Tax team, Allan Gray Proprietary Limited.
While South Africans battle with a cost-of-living crisis, rising unemployment and sluggish economic growth, Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana is faced with the daunting task of balancing the books in a watershed election year, amid a bloated public wage bill, rising debt-servicing costs and struggling state-owned enterprises. His options are limited to achieve stability in the country’s finances: borrow more, raise taxes or cut government expenditure. It looks like the Minister will pull all these levers in one way or another, as proposed in the 2024 Budget. In this document, we highlight some of the tax proposals that may impact investors. These changes come into effect on 1 March 2024, unless otherwise indicated.
What were the highlights? The key take-outs from this year’s Budget are summarised below:
- No inflationary adjustments have been made to the personal income tax brackets, tax thresholds, tax rebates or medical aid credits. This is expected to raise additional tax revenue of R18.2 billion.
- Above-inflation adjustments have been made to excise duties on alcohol and tobacco products.
- No change has been made to the general fuel levy and the Road Accident Fund levy.
- The “two-pot” retirement system will be implemented on 1 September 2024. An estimated R5 billion is likely to be raised in 2024/2025 due to tax collected as fund members access once‐off withdrawals.
To access the full article, click on the link. Short summary of the 2024 Budget speech.