The Gamagara municipality beat the City of Johannesburg, which had the second-highest average taxable income in South Africa which is R484,671.
Image: Picture: Gamagara Local Municipality/Facebook
The average South African may have not heard about the small town of Gamagara in the Northern Cape but this local municipality has the highest taxable income in South Africa.
According to National Treasury and the South African Revenue Service’s (Sars) latest tax statistics, the town had a taxable income of R518,808 for the 2023/24 fiscal year.
The municipality beat the City of Johannesburg, which had the second-highest average taxable income in South Africa which is R484,671.
Stellenboch in the Western Cape has the third-highest average taxable income in SA, which is R458,198.
The Northern Cape seems to be where the money is in South Africa as two other local municipalities were in the top ten list of high taxable income.
The Joe Morolong municipality in the Northern Cape has an average taxable income of R427,977.
According to Sars, The Tsantsabane Local Municipality, also in the Northern Cape has an average taxable income of R405,926.
Sars noted that over the past 30 years, tax collections have increased from R113.8 billion in 1994/95 to R1 740.9 billion in 2023/24, at a compounded annual growth rate of 9.9% and an average tax to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) ratio of 22.2%.
The body said that since the inception of SARS in 1997/98, the tax administration has collected more than R21.1 trillion for the country’s social and economic development.
It also added that in the 2023/24 fiscal year, SARS collected R2.2 trillion in gross tax revenue and this was R87 billion more than in the prior year.
In addition, the taxman refunded R413.9 billion back to South Africans, R32.8 billion more than in the prior year.
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