The DA’s hypocrisy about caring for ordinary South Africans was exposed today when Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana revealed the DA’s role in pushing for personal income tax bracket creep, yet another burden on hard-working South Africans, who are already expected to pay for government corruption, incompetence, and waste.
During a joint sitting of the Standing and Select Committees on Finance in Parliament, where Treasury and SARS responded to submissions on the Fiscal Framework, Godongwana disclosed that after the Budget was postponed on 19 February due to a Cabinet deadlock over a proposed two-percentage-point VAT hike, President Cyril Ramaphosa established a task team to resolve the crisis.
That task team included DA leader, John Steenhuisen.
Godongwana confirmed that five proposals were tabled, one of which came from the DA. And what did the DA’s proposal contain? No inflationary adjustment to personal income tax brackets, forcing an automatic tax hike on South Africans, alongside an increase in the fuel levy, hikes in medical aid tax credits, and higher sin taxes.
Now, after making a public spectacle of opposing the 0.5 percentage point VAT increase, the DA must explain why their own proposal would have extracted even more from taxpayers’ pockets.
While the VAT hike would collectively take R13.5 billion from all South African consumers, the DA-backed bracket creep would drain an additional R18 billion from South Africa’s 7.5 million taxpayers.
The ultra-wealthy have ways to dodge these increases, but the DA seems perfectly comfortable with squeezing ordinary, middle-class South Africans, the very people already suffocating under rising food prices, high interest rates, and limited career growth due to our stagnant economy. Clearly, the DA is out of touch with the lived realities of ordinary South Africans.
ActionSA rejects any tax hikes that force hard-working South Africans to pay for GNU mismanagement and the corruption that has hollowed out this country. It doesn’t matter if these taxes are hidden, South Africans will feel them where it hurts the most.
As the constructive opposition in Parliament, ActionSA will continue exposing the double standards of all parties in the coalition government. South Africans deserve to know when their leaders betray them, especially when it means reaching even deeper into taxpayers’ pockets.
DA’s Bracket Creep Betrayal: A Slap in the Face of Hard-Working South Africans
The DA’s hypocrisy about caring for ordinary South Africans was exposed today when Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana revealed the DA’s role in pushing for personal income tax bracket creep, yet another burden on hard-working South Africans, who are already expected to pay for government corruption, incompetence, and waste.
During a joint sitting of the Standing and Select Committees on Finance in Parliament, where Treasury and SARS responded to submissions on the Fiscal Framework, Godongwana disclosed that after the Budget was postponed on 19 February due to a Cabinet deadlock over a proposed two-percentage-point VAT hike, President Cyril Ramaphosa established a task team to resolve the crisis.
That task team included DA leader, John Steenhuisen.
Godongwana confirmed that five proposals were tabled, one of which came from the DA. And what did the DA’s proposal contain? No inflationary adjustment to personal income tax brackets, forcing an automatic tax hike on South Africans, alongside an increase in the fuel levy, hikes in medical aid tax credits, and higher sin taxes.
Now, after making a public spectacle of opposing the 0.5 percentage point VAT increase, the DA must explain why their own proposal would have extracted even more from taxpayers’ pockets.
While the VAT hike would collectively take R13.5 billion from all South African consumers, the DA-backed bracket creep would drain an additional R18 billion from South Africa’s 7.5 million taxpayers.
The ultra-wealthy have ways to dodge these increases, but the DA seems perfectly comfortable with squeezing ordinary, middle-class South Africans, the very people already suffocating under rising food prices, high interest rates, and limited career growth due to our stagnant economy. Clearly, the DA is out of touch with the lived realities of ordinary South Africans.
ActionSA rejects any tax hikes that force hard-working South Africans to pay for GNU mismanagement and the corruption that has hollowed out this country. It doesn’t matter if these taxes are hidden, South Africans will feel them where it hurts the most.
As the constructive opposition in Parliament, ActionSA will continue exposing the double standards of all parties in the coalition government. South Africans deserve to know when their leaders betray them, especially when it means reaching even deeper into taxpayers’ pockets.