According to the National Treasury and the South African Revenue Service (Sars) Tax Statistics 2021 edition, total tax revenue collections fell 7.8% to R1.25 trillion in the 2020/21 financial year, down from R1.36 trillion the previous year.

"Revenue collections in the 2020/21 fiscal year were severely impacted on by the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown restrictions, and an already struggling economy that contracted by 7% in 2020."

The fourteenth annual edition of tax statistics provides an overview of tax revenue collections and tax return information for the 2017 to 2021 tax years, as well as the 2016/17 to 2020/21 fiscal years, and revealed that total tax revenue collected by Sars increased from R1.14 trillion in 2016/17 to R1.25 trillion in 2020/21, growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 2.2 percent.

This is much lower than the previous five-year CAGR of 9% achieved from 2011/12 to 2016/17.

In addition, the tax-to-GDP ratio fell from 23.8 percent in 2019/20 to 22.5 percent in 2020/21. This was mostly due to yearly decreases in personal income tax, value-added tax (VAT), and domestic specific excise taxes revenue.

According to the Treasury and Sars, personal income tax (39.1%), corporate income tax (16.4%), and VAT (26.5%) together continue to be the greatest sources of tax revenue, accounting for 81.9 percent of total tax revenue collections.

Furthermore, corporate income tax data shows that 24 percent of the 812 306 entities evaluated as of September 2021 for the 2019 tax year had positive taxable income, 48.3% had negative taxable revenue, and the remaining 27.7% had an assessed loss.

Furthermore, a personal income tax, regional, demographic, and other examination of taxpayers assessed at the end of September 2021 for the 2020 tax year revealed that 2.091 million, or 40.1 percent, of those assessed were from Gauteng.

Furthermore, 687 261 assessed taxpayers resided in the Johannesburg Metropolitan Area, with an average taxable income of R481 209.

Meanwhile, 1.365 million, or 26.2 percent of assessed taxpayers, were between the ages of 35 and 44, with 2.79 million, or 53.6 percent, males and 2.42-million, or 46.4 percent, females.

"Assessed taxpayers had aggregate taxable income of R1.8-trillion and a tax liability of R407.2-billion. Their average tax rate was 22.4% compared with 22.3% in the previous tax year. Income from salaries, wages and other remuneration as well as pension, overtime and annuities accounted for 91.6% of total taxable income," the tax statistics report shows.

Furthermore, in 2020/21, firms or close corporations made up 79.3 percent of active VAT vendors, accounting for 92.9 percent of domestic VAT payments and 91.2 percent of VAT refunds. Despite accounting for 15.3 percent of VAT sellers, sole proprietors made 2.4 percent of domestic VAT payments and received 1.2 percent of VAT refunds.

Furthermore, import VAT and customs charges accounted for 13.3 percent and 3.8 percent of total tax income collected for the year, respectively, resulting in a 17.1 percent total, somewhat lower than the 17.5 percent average for the previous five fiscal years.

The share of these taxes in GDP fell to 3.8 percent from 4.1 percent in the previous five years, with import VAT accounting for 3 percent and customs fees accounting for 0.8 percent.

In addition, R16.4 billion in capital gains tax (CGT) was raised in 2020/21, with R8.4 billion going to individuals and trusts and R7.9 billion going to businesses. Since the implementation of CGT in October 2001, a total of R173.1 billion has been raised, with R80.9 billion coming from individuals and trusts and R92.1 billion coming from businesses.

Vehicles, airplanes, and vessels contributed the most to customs charges in 2020/21, accounting for 20.1 percent, textiles and apparel for 19 percent, machinery and electronics for 13.8 percent, and food, beverages, and tobacco for 13.4 percent.

The largest contributors to the ad valorem duty total were the sections of vehicles, aircraft, and vessels (56.7%) and machinery and electronics (38.6%), with luxury vehicles from Germany accounting for 30.1 percent of the former’s total and electronic devices from China accounting for 63.2 percent of the latter’s total.

Imports under the food, beverage, and tobacco area accounted for 97.5 percent of the total specific excise duty, with cigarettes accounting for 37.1 percent and whiskies accounting for 35.4 percent, respectively and imported mostly from the UK.

"The overall effective customs duty rate in 2020/21 was 2.8% compared with the 3.2% in the previous year. Key commodities with the highest effective duty rates were footwear and accessories at 24.5%, hides, skins and leather at 19.5%, textiles and clothing at 14.5%, food, beverages and tobacco at 9.8%, as well as vehicles, aircraft and vessels at 6.9%."