Mboweni OK with his Afrikaners

[xtermin8or]

Plain fact: they would probably make more money if they paid tax - running costs are tax deductable, investment in the business is deductable... Um, seems like paying tax is a white thing... I mean where's the mindset "for the good of the country?"

In a country of 25 million 'eligable' workers only 5 million pay tax... um, what is wrong with this picture?

Um, maybe this is the Peace Dividend?

typical, you will turn it into a race issue - I am sure that if you could get away without paying taxes you would, and for a long time the taxi industry not being regulated did not have to pay taxes

things are now changing, any taxi on our roads without the proper certification, meaning an application for a licence in terms of the Taxi recap programme will be impounded and scrapped - the first scrapping starts at the end of this month ( taxis will be crushed - I think it's happening in the Free State )

BTW - 98 percent of all known taxi operators have converted their licences and are now on a govt database and will have to pay tax

 

[repitah]

I think much off what has been said should be placed off topic.
As for the govenor, I think he hasn't done a bad job thus far, given the challenges he faces.
I think one of the greatest hurdles is changing the mindset of people to believe that paying taxes is for the good of the country. I would hate to imagine what the country would be like without the taxes needed for infrastructure and so on.

As for the issue of people leaving so quickly: It's sad to see how people move just for better money. it seems the "currently advantaged people" are just in it for the money and not for pride or job satifaction, albiet that money can be satisfying.

 

[Skeptik]

typical, you will turn it into a race issue

He wouldn't be alone then

- I am sure that if you could get away without paying taxes you would, and for a long time the taxi industry not being regulated did not have to pay taxes

Assumption+logic error=I'm dishonest and I'm a person, therefore all people are dishonest.

things are now changing, any taxi on our roads without the proper certification, meaning an application for a licence in terms of the Taxi recap programme will be impounded and scrapped - the first scrapping starts at the end of this month ( taxis will be crushed - I think it's happening in the Free State )

BTW - 98 percent of all known taxi operators have converted their licences and are now on a govt database and will have to pay tax

The government are afraid of the taxi operators because they go on strike at the drop of a cowboy hat. They show how organised they are when it comes to a strike, but when they must tax, they suddenly become "unregulated" and too disorganised to recoup tax from.

To my mind the government should take a Maggie Thatcher approach. Take the reckless drivers & deathtraps off the road ASAP. There are laws in place to control them but the authorities are too slopey shouldered to try it.

No need to pay these scumbags R100,000 for an old decrepit taxi. Must we really fund their retirement???

 

[kilo39]

typical, you will turn it into a race issue - I am sure that if you could get away without paying taxes you would, and for a long time the taxi industry not being regulated did not have to pay taxes

Um no - many of us were not in the tax database - and stepped forward - as a requirement of being a money earner.

 

[Turtle]

I keep hearing how wonderful our finance minister is: if he is so wonderful how come 98% of taxi operators don't pay tax?

Maybe this is where we are going to get all the multi-billions we seem to be spending - oh, a billion here, and 10 billion there, and... um, excuse me - how about everyone paying tax - then maybe we'd all be a little richer!!!

We don't get richer as a country by increasing taxation i.e. by taking peoples money away. You don't encourage poorer black South Africans that currently partake in small informal trading enterprises or provide services such as taxi driving to expand their entrepreneurial/economic activities by (a) making it costlier to do what they're doing and (b) "punishing" the behaviour with higher taxes (taxing them would also force them to pass on that increase to their clients, and when transport costs go up, everything goes up). Don't we want to encourage small businesses? "Wealth" comes from productive/entrepreneurial activity. Taxing any activity discourages that activity. Therefore increasing taxes on productive activities will tend to decrease production (and hence overall wealth), while on the flip side things like welfare encourage consumptive activity. In short lower taxes rewards wealth production, while higher taxes and welfare reward wealth consumption instead. (The leftist counter-argument to this is that taxes would be used by government to fund productive activity (i.e. nationalisation of businesses); the counter-counter-argument is that free markets will usually be more efficient than government at production.)

What do you mean the multi-billions we "seem to be" spending? We really do have that money to spend, our economy is large enough to support it, that's actual money from the actual taxes government already collects. Our annual GDP is around 200 billion US$, or +/- 1.6 trillion Rand, easy to get a few tens of billions out of that. Government departments in fact regularly underspend on their budgets these days.

I welcome more people paying tax, as the simple logic is the wider the tax base - the lower taxes will be for me and you ( that's assuming if you pay tax)

That is generally true in theory, provided government doesn't simply "get bigger" as taxation increases - there should be some 'pressure' to maintain smaller government. But one should also be careful about where one taxes higher/lower, e.g. taxing transport will increase inflation and make it even harder for poor people to get by. Not quite sure where to stand on that though.