R15 Trillion later, whites are still the villain in ANC’s narrative - Dave Steward

Key topics

• Whites contribute R600bn to state revenue, far more than is spent on them

• ANC policies aim to limit white economic space via BBBEE and expropriation

• NDR ideology hinders growth and may harm all South Africans economically

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By Dave Steward

Have you ever wondered how much tax white South Africans pay – and what amount is spent by the state on services for them?

I recently did a little calculation.  According to the Treasury’s 2025 Budget Review tax revenue will be R2,006 trillion this financial year.   This includes R811,1 billion from income tax; R331,3 billion from company tax; R499,5 billion from VAT and R87,8 billion from taxes on international trade and transactions.

There are altogether 7,89 million registered taxpayers comprising 12,1% of the population. 12,5% of taxpayers (1,5% of the population) will pay 60,4% of income tax.  The next 67% (8,1% of the population) will pay 38%.  

The first group corresponds quite closely to the “Elite” group of 4,9% of the population identified in a study by  Zizzamia et al in 2019, if we assume that each taxpayer has an average of a little more than two dependents.  The Elite earn more than R750 000 per annum and in 2017 were 65,4% white. The second group corresponds to the study’s “Middle Class”, which in 2017 included 22,4% of the population who earn between R150 000 and R750 000 - 20,5% of whom are white.  

On this basis, the white elite will pay R 320,4 billion in income tax and the white middle class will contribute an additional R 63,2 billion - R 383,6 billion in all.

According to the Budget Review the top decile paid 39,8% of VAT in 2022/23.  The second and third deciles paid 17.2% and 11,3% respectively.  On the basis of the Zizzamia study the white  contribution to VAT will be R123.5 billion.

Their contribution to company tax is more difficult to assess.   However, given that 22% of shares listed on the JSE are white-owned and there are tens of thousands of substantial non-listed white-owned companies, it can be estimated that they will pay at least 30% 0f company tax - R93.3 billion. 

This rough calculation gives us a conservative estimate of R 600,4 billion for the white contribution to national revenue.

Now let’s look at the expenditure side.   Total state spending this financial year will be R2,592 trillion.  The white share of the R 1,065 trillion budget for general services will be R82 billion, reflecting their 7.2% share of the population.   

White children comprise 4,3% of the 12,6 million children in state schools and will cost the state R14,6 billion this year.  The 11% of university students who are white will cost the state another R16. 1 billion.  If one third of whites make use of state medical services, their share of the health budget will be R7,2 billion. Hardly any whites benefit from other social services and transfers with a combined budget this year of R709 billion.

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This gives us total state expenditure on whites of R120 billion.   Whites will accordingly contribute R480 billion more to the Treasury than the state will spend on them.  This represents an annual transfer to the fiscus of an average of more than R100 000 for every white man, woman and child over and above what the state spends on them. Extrapolated over the 31 years since 1994 this would, at current rand values, constitute a total flow from whites to their fellow South Africans via state expenditure of almost R15 trillion.

Very few whites complain about this because it is accepted throughout the world that those with higher incomes should pay progressively higher taxes.   This is despite the additional hundreds of billions of rand that whites pay each year from their after-tax incomes for private education, health and security services.

Also, there have been enormous changes in tax and benefit shares since 1994. According to a 1992 IMF study, in 1987 whites paid 71% of taxes and received 35% of benefits. Now they pay 30% of taxes and receive back 4,6% in general services and social benefits.  Non-white South Africans now pay more than twice as much in tax as whites and receive more than 95% of the services and benefits.  They also spend more on private education, health care and security than whites do.

Nevertheless, the R600 billion white contribution reflects their still enormous and disproportionate contribution to the  economy and to job creation. 

One would have imagined, under these circumstances, that the white community would be highly valued by the state. Unfortunately, this is not the case.  The ANC is doubling down on its policies to limit the economic space within which whites can operate.    The new Expropriation Act and BBBEE codes are intended eventually to ratchet down white participation in the economy to their shrinking share of the national population - which has declined from 12,8% in 1994 to 7.2% now.  So now, in terms of the ANC’s racial mathematics, whites would theoretically be entitled to only 56% of the property, wealth and jobs they could have demographically claimed 31 years ago. The prospects for the future are not good because only 2.8% of children under the age of five are white.  

31 years after 1994 whites are still regarded as the principal antagonists in the ANC’s ideological struggle to establish the National Democratic Society (NDS). In the NDS, the utopian culmination of the NDR, everything – all wealth, all property and all jobs – will be shared on the basis of the country’s demographics.  As Cyril Ramaphosa put it in February, 2014, “Race will remain an issue until all echelons of our society are demographically representative.” 

All developments in South Africa must be viewed against this bleak backdrop. In the ANC’s statement of 12 April - in which it more or less recommitted itself to the GNU - it insisted that it “remains rooted in its values and resolutions (i.e. EWC, the NHI and BBBEE) and will not compromise on the fundamental goals of social and economic justice, equality and transformation” (i.e. RET and the NDR).

For as long as the ANC remains committed to the NDR nothing will work. Its socialist/racial engineering policies will be a fatal impediment to the achievement of the GNU’s agenda of economic growth, job creation, and nation-building.   

Ironically, the ANC would have achieved far greater redistribution of wealth If it had continued President Mbeki’s pragmatic economic policies that had achieved 5% economic growth between 2005 and 2007.  Had they maintained economic growth at this pace, the economy would be twice as large as it is now, and the non-white share of income would have been commensurately greater.   Everyone would have won – but now, because of the ANC’s NDR  ideology, everyone stands to lose.