Just 340 corporations pay most of SA’s company tax

Johannesburg - A relatively small number of businesses pay the majority of South Africa’s corporate income tax. So said Randall Carolissen, research head at the SA Revenue Service (SARS), this week during the release of the annual Tax Statistics Bulletin report.

The report showed that 340 of the largest local corporations paid 56.8% of corporate income tax in the 2015 tax year.

Each had reported taxable annual income of more than R200m.

These corporations represent 0.2% of all local companies with positive tax income.

At the end of March 2017, SARS had almost 3.7 million companies on its register.

The report found that the financial intermediation, insurance, property and business services sectors represented 26% of the assessed companies and were liable for 40.5% of the corporate income tax assessed.

Carolissen said SARS had seen a moderation in bonuses paid in the economy, especially in the financial sector.

Turning to the Southern African Customs Union (SACU), Carolissen said disbursements by South Africa were the “biggest grant payments in the world”.

In the 2017 tax year, South Africa’s total contributions to the SACU pool amounted to R84.7bn.

The report found that in the 2016 tax year, only 75% – or 4.8 million – of South Africa’s taxpayers submitted their returns.