Tag: SARS

Business and economic indexes, Company tax, Demographic-entrepreneurial relationships, ECONOMIC POLICY AND STRATEGY, Enterprise profitability, Enterprise research, data and statistics, Entrepreneurial activity, Investment/Divestment, Job creation and unemployment, Large enterprises, Medium sized enterprises, Population size, Small and medium enterprises (SMEs)

Investment ambassadors can try, but SA company losses exceed taxable income

Johannes Wessels
@johannesEOSA1

Pres Ramaphosa’s announcement that four special ambassadors – including well respected Trevor Manuel – are to roam the globe in an aggressive pursuit of foreign investment  “… like a pack of lions”, appears to be premature. It would have helped these ambassadors if they could have had a better story to tell than one of a business environment with stagnating profitability and growing losses where:

  • only 25% of firms have earned sufficient to be liable for company tax;
  • firms with a taxable income below R10 million decline at a rate of 31 per week;
  • a mere 635 companies are responsible for 77% of company tax;
  • from 2009 to 2015 company losses as submitted to SARS increased by 85% and for the last two years were higher than the taxable income assessed.
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SARS data for tax years 2009 to 2015 (for the latter 95.4% of company tax returns have been assessed) as indicators for the health of the South African enterprise landscape, show the business devastation of the Zuma administration (5 with Motlanthe and 4 with Ramaphosa as deputy). This administration, responsible for mismanaging the macro-environment and overseeing the collapse of the police force and education quality and a rise in crime and corruption, critically damaged the enterprise environment.

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