THE FINANCIAL EFFECT OF #FEESMUSTFALL ON INDIVIDUAL TAXPAYERS

Year 2019, , 17 - 32, 17.06.2019

Anneke Maré Moolman Lerike Jacobs

https://doi.org/10.34109/ijefs.201911102

Cited By: 1

Abstract

The #FeesMustFall campaign evolved from a demand for lower fees for higher
education to fee-free higher education in merely two years, necessitating extensive
reconsideration of the state budget. Over the same period, marginal tax rate and
value added tax (VAT) increases have been felt by South African individual
taxpayers. Therefore an exploratory, document analysis has been performed to
determine the extent to which the #FeesMustFall campaign has been shifted to the
individual taxpayer between the 2015 and 2019 years of assessment. The findings
indicate that the demand for increased financial support of students led to the
recent VAT and marginal tax rate increases, but that tax revenue is actually
declining: the VAT increase has partially covered the increase in social grants to
protect the poor from the VAT increase, and the marginal tax rate increase is
resulting in reduced growth in tax revenue collection as individual taxpayers are
overburdened and therefore, tax avoidance is increasing while productivity is
decreasing. The present study provides taxpayers with clarity on the recent tax
increases and emphasises to National Treasury that any further tax increase would
be to the country’s detriment.

Keywords

FeesMustFall, tax rate increases, VAT increase, tax budget, free higher education

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