Minister optimistic on tax collection in global climate
TAX collections have grown with a compounded annual growth rate of 12.7% over the past 20 years‚ from R113-billion to R899.7-billion in the 2013-14 fiscal year‚ according to Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan.
Last year’s figures were marginally better than the revised estimate of R899-billion announced in this year’s budget.
Announcing the preliminary outcome of revenue collection for the 2013-14 fiscal year, Gordhan said revenue collection was excellent in the face of global uncertainty and a largely inadequate growth level in South Africa.
However‚ better growth and better employment numbers were needed to enable the country to spend more “on the right things”‚ and to take care of the borrowings South Africa had incurred to mitigate the effect of the recession.
Estimated tax revenue for the 2014-15 fiscal year is R993.7billion.
Gordhan said the prolonged strike in the platinum sector had an effect on the 2013-14 tax collection‚ but it was not “overwhelming”.
Labour disruptions in mining in 2012 led to a significant decline of R6.3-billion in provisional corporate income tax‚ and only R14.1billion was collected – a year-onyear drop of 31%.
Last year‚ tax receipts from the mining sector showed a strong recovery‚ growing year-to-date 29.6% from a base of R12.4-billion to R16.1-billion due to gains from the depreciating rand.
Deloitte associate director Alex Gwala said the platinum strike was in the last three months of the financial year‚ when mines still had stockpiles. He said the real effect would not be reflected in the latest figures.
Most platinum mines have a December year-end‚ so the effect would be visible only in the medium-term budget policy statement in October‚ or the 2015 budget. — BDLive