Tax revenue mobilisation: Estimates of South Africa’s personal income tax gap

South African Journal of Economic and Management Sciences

 
 
Field Value
 
Title Tax revenue mobilisation: Estimates of South Africa’s personal income tax gap
 
Creator Dare, Chengetai Plessis, Sophia du Jansen, Ada
 
Subject economics; taxation; personal income tax Tax gap; non-compliance; tax evasion; personal income tax; micro-simulation; salaried income; non-salaried income.
Description Background: Tax evasion is one of the factors impeding tax revenue mobilisation. Although there are efforts to reduce non-compliance, the extent and nature thereof remain fairly unknown in many developing countries, including South Africa. To adequately address tax evasion, it is imperative to determine the tax gap (i.e. the difference between the theoretical tax liability and the actual tax revenue collected).Aim: To estimate the extent and nature of South Africa’s personal income tax gap, disaggregating the gap by the type of income (salaried and non-salaried).Setting: The study looks at the South African personal income tax system.Methods: This study employs a micro-simulation approach using data from the Income and Expenditure Survey of South Africa for the periods 2005/2006 and 2010/2011.Results: The findings reveal that South Africa lost tax revenue of R60.1 billion in 2005/2006, and R26.2 bn in 2010/2011 (in 2017 prices). Of the total compliance gap in 2005, 28.5% emanated from taxpayers with salaried income, and 71.5% from non-salaried income taxpayers. In 2010, salaried income taxpayers contributed 1.1% to the total compliance gap.Conclusion: Despite an overall improvement in the individual compliance rate, non-salaried income taxpayers (self-assessment reporting) are the main contributors to South Africa’s personal income tax gap.
 
Publisher AOSIS Publishing
 
Contributor Mark Rider, Georgia State University, Department of Economics
Date 2019-07-15
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion — micro-simulations
Format text/html application/epub+zip application/xml application/pdf
Identifier 10.4102/sajems.v22i1.2817
 
Source South African Journal of Economic and Management Sciences; Vol 22, No 1 (2019); 8 pages 2222-3436 1015-8812
 
Language eng
 
Relation
The following web links (URLs) may trigger a file download or direct you to an alternative webpage to gain access to a publication file format of the published article:

https://sajems.org/index.php/sajems/article/view/2817/1847 https://sajems.org/index.php/sajems/article/view/2817/1846 https://sajems.org/index.php/sajems/article/view/2817/1848 https://sajems.org/index.php/sajems/article/view/2817/1845
 
Coverage South Africa 2005-2011 C15; H24; H26
Rights Copyright (c) 2019 Chengetai Dare, Sophia du Plessis, Ada Jansen https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
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