{"id":1990,"date":"2025-04-28T08:17:15","date_gmt":"2025-04-28T08:17:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.innov8fs.co.za\/blog\/?p=1990"},"modified":"2026-03-18T11:46:05","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T11:46:05","slug":"high-taxes-chase-rich-people-out-of-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.innov8fs.co.za\/blog\/2025\/04\/28\/high-taxes-chase-rich-people-out-of-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"High taxes chase rich people out of South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"entry-content text-dark\">\n<p>Award-winning economist Dawie Roodt said wealthy South Africans have two main requests \u2013 taking their money out of the country and paying less tax.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1991\" src=\"https:\/\/www.innov8fs.co.za\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/High-taxes-chase-rich-people-out-of-South-Africa.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.innov8fs.co.za\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/High-taxes-chase-rich-people-out-of-South-Africa.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.innov8fs.co.za\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/High-taxes-chase-rich-people-out-of-South-Africa-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.innov8fs.co.za\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/High-taxes-chase-rich-people-out-of-South-Africa-768x432.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The high taxes and unstable local economic environment have reached such concerning levels that many wealthy individuals are leaving South Africa.<\/p>\n<p>Roodt shared this information\u00a0during a Biznews interview\u00a0about the planned value-added tax (VAT) increase and South Africa\u2019s tax regime.<\/p>\n<p>He highlighted that South Africa has a very narrow tax base, with a small number of companies and individuals paying most of the country\u2019s taxes.<\/p>\n<p>South Africa\u2019s 2024 tax statistics revealed\u00a0that only 1,051 companies pay 72.3% of all company income tax in the country.<\/p>\n<p>Companies with taxable income greater than R100 million constituted 0.1% of the total number but contributed 72.2% of taxable income and 72.3% of assessed tax.<\/p>\n<p>The same goes for personal income tax. 978,140 South Africans, or 1.5% of the population, pay 60.9% of all personal income tax.<\/p>\n<p>Even more concerning is that only 235,542 South Africans, or 0.4% of the population, pay 33% of all personal income tax.<\/p>\n<p>Roodt said that this is unsustainable and that South Africa should focus on economic growth, which will create more taxpayers.<\/p>\n<p>He explained that the current mixture of taxes in South Africa is harmful to economic growth and must be changed.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are losing our rich people. They are emigrating or very aggressively structuring their tax affairs because taxes are so high,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>He said as an asset manager at Efficient Wealth, people who come into his office tell him two things:<\/p>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>I want to take my money out of the country.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>I want to pay less tax.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>South Africa is already on the wrong side of the Laffer curve, meaning tax increases will not increase tax revenue.<\/p>\n<p>A particular concern is high company taxes. \u201cSouth Africa\u2019s company tax of 27% is far higher than global standards, which makes the country less competitive,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have to reduce company taxes to make South Africa more attractive as a global investment destination. This will improve economic growth and increase employment.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Higher employment means more South Africans will pay value-added and personal income taxes, removing the pressure on the current small tax base.<\/p>\n<p>He advocated for a total revamp of South Africa\u2019s tax regime. \u201cIt needs to be simplified, and some taxes need to be reduced and changed,\u201d Roodt said.<\/p>\n<h6><strong>Credit:<\/strong> Staff Writer<\/h6>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Award-winning economist Dawie Roodt said wealthy South Africans have two main requests \u2013 taking their money out of the country and paying less tax. The&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-innov8ions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.innov8fs.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.innov8fs.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.innov8fs.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.innov8fs.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.innov8fs.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1990"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.innov8fs.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1990\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1992,"href":"https:\/\/www.innov8fs.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1990\/revisions\/1992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.innov8fs.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.innov8fs.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.innov8fs.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}