New tax data shows that tax revenue collection increased by 8.5% to R1.07 trillion for 2015/16.
The report – Tax Statistics 2016 – published by the South African Revenue Service (SARS) and National Treasury, showed that for the 2015/16 year, there were 18.2 million registered individual taxpayers, while it assessed just under 4.8 million taxpayers.
In a separate note on Friday, SARS said it received 5.74 million returns by the close of tax season for non-provisional taxpayers including 4.16 million submissions by individuals for the 2015/16 tax year.
SARS’ data showed that for the 2015/16 tax year as many as 636,000 South Africans earned a salary of more than R500,000 per annum – R41,600 per month.
In 2014, 480,435 taxpayer’s earned more than R500,000 per annum.
The data showed that the bulk of tax payers earned between R70,001 and R350,000 per year – R5,800 and R29,000 per month respectively.
Research published by StatsSA showed that the average monthly earnings paid to employees in the formal non-agricultural sector in SA is R17,517.
This amounts to an annual salary of R210,204.
BankservAfrica, an automated clearing house and payments system operator, meanwhile, put the average pay of South Africans working in the formal sector at about R13,500 per month – R162,000 per annum.
And in June, the School of Economic and Business Sciences (SEBS) at the University of the Witwatersrand said that across all levels in South Africa, the average salary increased 35% between 2003 and 2012, to R7,443 (median: R3.897) – R89,300 per annum.
SARS said in its report that the average taxable income of taxpayers who have been assessed every year since 2005, increased by a compound annual growth rate of 12.2%.
