Will the SA government increase VAT?

[SeRpEnT]

You cant make pie for free. If you want to eat in the future you need to pay today for the ingredients and to cook the pie. They dont form by themselves. I agree, government needs to get more efficient, but Im personally in favour of higher social spending and higher taxation. Its got the best proven track record for allowing the most people possible to get some pie

Yah, and lets all hold hands and sing Khumbayah and get a warm glowing feeling up our arses.... Or shall we sing "WE AAARE THE WOOORLD....WE AAARE THE PEEOPLE....!" ??!
You #$^$#& libtard socialist dreamers sickens me...

 

[The_Ogre]

Well, a VAT rate increase would be more fair I suppose as everyone contributes to VAT income. Pity it would make our electronic goodies a bit more expensive though

Not the poor.

As someone stated earlier, foodstuffs which the poor consume the most are zero-rated for VAT. You could argue that they still need clothes and furniture, but how often does your average squatter inhabitant go out to buy those?

We - me and you - will suffer much more.

 

[Sinbad]

Not the poor.

As someone stated earlier, foodstuffs which the poor consume the most are zero-rated for VAT. You could argue that they still need clothes and furniture, but how often does your average squatter inhabitant go out to buy those?

We - me and you - will suffer much more.

They still have cellphones and dstv

 

[Ockie]

Not the poor.

As someone stated earlier, foodstuffs which the poor consume the most are zero-rated for VAT. You could argue that they still need clothes and furniture, but how often does your average squatter inhabitant go out to buy those?

We - me and you - will suffer much more.

They pay VAT on airtime dont they?

 

[Ockie]

They still have cellphones and dstv

Oh damn ... you beat me to it.

 

[stixx]

You know, I'm sick of hearing about the damn poor. If the poor are such an issue, then they must be banned from breeding...

+1, eradicate the poor like the vermin they are (start with the president first), then we will have no issues. No more street beggers, drastic reduction in crime.

Education will not work for the majority of the poor, as the saying goes, you can leada horse to water but you cant make the horse drink it...

 

[Sonic2k]

Sorry ghoti... don't have time to quote you here, but I will say this.
We are not all wealthy like you OK? We don't have Jersey funds where we can hide our money, and we don't have businesses that pay for all our expenses so that we can escape paying PAYE and SITE and having to file an IRP5. It doesn't make a difference if we were born in a mud hut or not, but what you forget is that, some of us, grew up poor, in a ****ty house, with no real money to spare, and the only route I got into IT was to get a bursary, and that enabled me to afford my first computer, when I was 21 years old..

 

[Mike Hoxbig]

Or we can change the socio economic conditions that allow poverty to flourish.

Im sure if you were poor, your view would be slightly different. Luckily you were born to where you are.... not a rural mud hut in the Transkei.

I was born to a poor household, so I know what it was like growing up. My parents worked their arses off to put me through school and university.

The difference is that they didn't have an entitlement issue. They didn't need trade unions to demand free stuff for them at the expense of others...

 

[krycor]

VAT should maybe go up to 18% (non-food/raw, includes takeout) and food stuff (groceries not zero rated, excludes takeout/processed) can remain at 14% or go to 15%. Unfortunately i reckon if they do push it up it will only be by a 1% and will likely increases income tax again.


The problem in SA is tax evasion of non-formal/corp business workers especially tax drivers. Pushing up the VAT will hit everyone but is better than placing burdon entirely on corporate income earners. This will cost votes.. but then the way things are going in SA, everything the ANC does now will cost votes as they stuffed up. Their only way out of this is to lose the elections so that the next party puts in unpopular reforms/corrections but unfortunately since the vote is skewed they kinda forced to do unpopular things which loses them votes longer term

 

[w1z4rd]

Fix education, open the economy for business.
Stop the handouts (except for education!)

Stop the handouts, give more handups. More social spending and more taxation (if managed well), means reductions in poverty, unemployment, expanded middle class, etc. This can be observed.

 

[w1z4rd]

Yah, and lets all hold hands and sing Khumbayah and get a warm glowing feeling up our arses.... Or shall we sing "WE AAARE THE WOOORLD....WE AAARE THE PEEOPLE....!" ??!
You #$^$#& libtard socialist dreamers sickens me...

Shouldnt you be in a Church in Carolina shooting people or something?

Im actually basing my opinions on empirical observation and my views can be found in pretty much any economics 101 textbook in almost every developed country. Im not the extremists here

 

[Sinbad]

Stop the handouts, give more handups. More social spending and more taxation (if managed well), means reductions in poverty, unemployment, expanded middle class, etc. This can be observed.

"social spending" is too broad.

Needs to be targeted spending in areas that improves people's capabilities, not discourages them from working for themselves.

 

[w1z4rd]

I was born to a poor household, so I know what it was like growing up.

Really? Real poverty? No electricity? Walk 10km to a ****ty school kinda poverty? Or white poverty kinda poor where you lived in a city, had running water and electricity and had to walk a couple of kms to school

My parents worked their arses off to put me through school and university.

Thats awesome that they lived in a place where they had the oppertunity to work really hard for you. Go find work in the rural transkei where 90% of the people are subsistence farmers. You will find millions of parents there that would love to be given the oppertunity to work hard to give their kids as much as your parents gave you.

The difference is that they didn't have an entitlement issue. They didn't need trade unions to demand free stuff for them at the expense of others...

Or perhaps... your understanding on poverty and what its like not growing up in a developed area may need some more perspective.

 

[LazyLion]

5mil cannot sustain 50mil people. They are having problems.
They don't know how to tell there people. It will come down to a big bang.
Does not matter who is in power at that given time.

I heard it was more like 3 Million regular tax payers.

 

[w1z4rd]

"social spending" is too broad.

Needs to be targeted spending in areas that improves people's capabilities, not discourages them from working for themselves.

In Sweden. The kids often get paid by the government to go to school. At first I thought this was stupid, but when I was online playing with some swedish friends, a young one (who was a stoner) said he had to leave early to go to bed as he cant afford to not go to school. He wont get paid. In South Africa that same kid would have bunked school and his academics would have slumped a lil as a result.

By social spending, I mean strong welfare net. Its not just education, its grants to help single moms let down by their deadbeat husbands, its good medical facilities so that an illness does not cripple a struggling family financially. Its also the development of infrastructure (roads, harbours, airports, railway) to help create the environment for business to thrive in. Its a heck of a lot more than just education.

 

[Sonic2k]

Really? Real poverty? No electricity? Walk 10km to a ****ty school kinda poverty? Or white poverty kinda poor where you lived in a city, had running water and electricity and had to walk a couple of kms to school


Thats awesome that they lived in a place where they had the oppertunity to work really hard for you. Go find work in the rural transkei where 90% of the people are subsistence farmers. You will find millions of parents there that would love to be given the oppertunity to work hard to give their kids as much as your parents gave you.


Or perhaps... your understanding on poverty and what its like not growing up in a developed area may need some more perspective.

Yes I frikken walked 10km to school.
Your sense of entitlement is astounding... Tell us, what was it like being born into a wealthy family?

 

[R13...]

Yes I frikken walked 10km to school.
Your sense of entitlement is astounding... Tell us, what was it like being born into a wealthy family?

His point still stands though. There is being poor and then being poor. People born and living in abject poverty who can't afford bread and are just glad for a sack of mealie every month and then must forage for the rest.

 

[w1z4rd]

Your sense of entitlement is astounding... Tell us, what was it like being born into a wealthy family?

Whats it like to be born into a family with running water and electricity?

I wouldnt call my family wealthy (well not back then), when I was growing up they were pretty average middle class. However, growing up in that environment made it hard for me to understand real poverty. When people talk about "white privilege" they actually mean "class/wealth privilege" (just in SA... Apartheid made that class system along racial lines). I understand it now. I had it. My siblings have it. Its almost impossible to understand that type of poverty and hopelessness unless you have lived it. Most people born in developed areas are unable to understand this kinda poverty. If you grew up with electricity and running water its for for you to imagine what a life without that is like. If you grew up in an area that gave you the opportunity to work, its hard to understand why people in rural areas cant work.

Fortunately I had a misguided childhood and made some mistakes in my early 20s. I learnt what its like to have nothing and to live on the streets. I learnt a real lot about humanity and learnt a lot of perspective during that period in my life. Thankfully my involvement in charity and politics has also really opened my eyes up to how people in poverty suffer. Most people are not poor because they dont want to work. They are poor because they cant work.

When I do political work in a rural area. Many people take down my number. The next day after an event I get about a dozen smss from young black people begging me for any type of work (I think the general assumption out there is because I am white, I can hire). You want 10 000 young black people who want to work? Speak to me! These people WANT work, but because of a lack of oppertunity cant work :/

 

[Drunkard #1]

Really? Real poverty? No electricity? Walk 10km to a ****ty school kinda poverty? Or white poverty kinda poor where you lived in a city, had running water and electricity and had to walk a couple of kms to school


Thats awesome that they lived in a place where they had the oppertunity to work really hard for you. Go find work in the rural transkei where 90% of the people are subsistence farmers. You will find millions of parents there that would love to be given the oppertunity to work hard to give their kids as much as your parents gave you.


Or perhaps... your understanding on poverty and what its like not growing up in a developed area may need some more perspective.

And what exactly do The Real Poor[SUP]TM[/SUP] contribute to society. What does the billions we contribute to their welfare get us? An entitled populus that thinks they're owed a middle class lifestyle. **** that, and **** them - you contribute to society or you die in a gutter.

 

[Drunkard #1]

Whats it like to be born into a family with running water and electricity?

I wouldnt call my family wealthy (well not back then), when I was growing up they were pretty average middle class. However, growing up in that environment made it hard for me to understand real poverty. When people talk about "white privilege" they actually mean "class/wealth privilege" (just in SA... Apartheid made that class system along racial lines). I understand it now. I had it. My siblings have it. Its almost impossible to understand that type of poverty and hopelessness unless you have lived it. Most people born in developed areas are unable to understand this kinda poverty. If you grew up with electricity and running water its for for you to imagine what a life without that is like. If you grew up in an area that gave you the opportunity to work, its hard to understand why people in rural areas cant work.

Fortunately I had a misguided childhood and made some mistakes in my early 20s. I learnt what its like to have nothing and to live on the streets. I learnt a real lot about humanity and learnt a lot of perspective during that period in my life. Thankfully my involvement in charity and politics has also really opened my eyes up to how people in poverty suffer. Most people are not poor because they dont want to work. They are poor because they cant work.

When I do political work in a rural area. Many people take down my number. The next day after an event I get about a dozen smss from young black people begging me for any type of work (I think the general assumption out there is because I am white, I can hire). You want 10 000 young black people who want to work? Speak to me! These people WANT work, but because of a lack of oppertunity cant work :/

Are they skilled? Are they skillable? Didn't think so. Wanting to work, and being able to make a contribution are two different things. Maybe you should focus on "managing expectations", rather than entrenching their "blame everyone but themselves" attitude.