Tributum Newsletter #7

Hello there,

I can hardly believe it, but six months into my venture I can say time really flies when you are having fun. A big thank you to my clients, my family and my friends for your continued support and understanding. This journey is not walked alone.

Thanks to David Reed for picking up my error in Newsletter #6. It was not Anton Rupert that is considering leaving South Africa (“SA”)  but his son, Johann Rupert. Johann is unhappy as he believes he is a target of populist politics, being portrayed as the alleged face of white monopoly capital. He is also a constant target of SARS, despite being one of SA’s biggest taxpayers.

Unfortunately, SA has a very disproportionate level of individual taxpayers. I don’t want to raise alarm here, but of the budgeted R552.9billion individual tax collection for the 2020 fiscal year, R291.8billion thereof (52.77%) will be collected from only 544 250 individuals. That is less than 1% of the 58 million estimated SA population paying more than 50% of individual taxes! The fine balancing act for SA politicians and SARS is not to kill the goose laying the golden eggs. That is not to say that large taxpayers should not be investigated – if they owe more they should pay more. It is just that resources should also be applied to taxing those that are not yet even in the tax net.

On the flip side Edward Kieswetter is ignoring the Public Protector noise and other inference and SARS is following the Nugent commission recommendations. SARS have already placed 5 top managers on precautionary suspension since end July, and on 26 August confirmed that agreement was reached with one of the individuals to terminate his employment.  Hopefully the other matters can also be resolved quickly. Rather than focusing just on the negative (and there are many I know), maybe we need to celebrate the positive more (and there are also many). Written and social media should start covering the good news more. But if it bleeds it leads…

Excuse the pun, but as I started this newsletter reports of the fatal crash involving Gavin Watson from BOSASA fame started filtering through. It happened the day before his expected testimony at SARS and some would say SA was denied justice, while other may argue justice was served. Either way, a conspiracy theorists’ dream.

Some positive thoughts on the progress on states capture were shared by JP Landman (https://www.news24.com/Columnists/GuestColumn/jp-landman-its-not-all-doom-and-gloom-how-the-ramaphosa-presidency-is-reclaiming-the-state-20190822), and entrepreneur Alan Knott-Craig (https://www.biznews.com/undictated/2019/08/23/alan-knott-craig-optimistic-sa) also shared some positive thoughts about staying in SA that are both worth reading.

Spring into action on 1 September and get better at being better. Until next time.