Tax revenue exceeds budget targets

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The South African Revenue Service said revenue collection for the 2020/2021 financial year was R1.250 trillion, which exceeded the February budget estimate by R 38.0 billion.

SARS Commissioner, Edward Kieswetter, said stated otherwise, they were able to reduce the October revenue estimate of an under-recovery from R 312.8 billion to R 175.2 billion.

“This means that SARS reports an additional R 138.0 billion as a result of a slightly improved economy and focused compliance efforts for the year,” he said on Thursday.

 “Within the context of the economic contraction, the revenue reported year on year is down 7.8% but represents an improvement of 3.1% against the revised estimate of February 2021 and 12.3% against the MTBPS Estimate of October 2020.

 The significant contributors to this positive revenue performance reported against February 2021 Estimate are namely:

• Personal Income Tax Net UP by R4.2bn –6bn (RE 484.4bn) 0.9%
• Corporate Income Tax Net – UP by R 11.7bn –7bn (RE 192.3bn) 6.5%
• VAT Net – UP by R 6.1 bn – R 330.7bn (RE 324.6bn) 1.9%
• Import Duties UP by R 2.2bn – R 47.4bn (RE 45.2bn) 4.9%
• Domestic Specific Excise UP R 7.4 bn –3bn (RE 24.7bn) 30.7%

Kieswetter said the positive performance was a result of some economic improvement as well as focused collection efforts by SARS.