Vat Increase Remains Sticky Point Among Many Political Parties

The ACDP says it expects a form of smaller VAT increase when Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana tables the budget on Wednesday.

The party says it thinks hiking the tax with a smaller percentage will not cause harm to the poor. Earlier the party was against the tax increase.

Party MP Steve Swart elaborates, The ACDP also did not support the proposed two percent VAT increase which led to the postponement of the budget. We expect therefore, there will be smaller VAT increase in tight conditions of low economic growth. Taxpayers are correctly demanding for the value for their taxes which they do not see with power and water outages and dysfunctional municipalities. Far more needs to be done in this regard. Wasteful and excessive government expenditure needs to be reduced. In addition, in our view, the Hawks, SIU and NPA can be given additional resources to collect the billions of rands stolen through state capture and corruption.

The DA says Godongwana should follow what it calls a six-point plan it has crafted, a guide in preventing tax increase when tabling the budget. The party made these sentiments as part of outlining its expectations on the reported lower VAT increase. It is one of the political parties that been vocal against the increase in VAT, saying this is to protect the poor.

DA MP Dr Mark Burke on the possible suggestions, Today the DA outlined a six-point plan to avoid a VAT increase and get to the budget that focuses on jobs and growth. We are not convinced that there is this dichotomy between higher taxes and austerity budget that focuses on spending cuts for frontline services. The DA will remain focuses on growing the economy through economic reforms. But also finding inefficiencies within government. Cutting those expenses, amalgamating and burning the departments that make no sense. And if we are able to do that, we will see this economy firing again and we will not have to burden South Africans to do that.