The budget speech took its usual course yesterday, one of
accept it you have no other choice and we don’t care what you think. And a “ooh
by the way you are to successful so you shall suffer more”. This brought to
mind the old favourite that South Africa is truly a rainbow nation, but the pot
gold at the end of that rainbow was long ago found by the ANC.
So what does this year’s budget mean, well for one the
government is going to invest more of those few hard working people’s money
into corruption, social welfare and more roads that will be poorly built and
have to be rebuilt over and over and over again. The ANC needs to stay in power
and the poor vote comes at the cheap price of a social grant. This is all
funded by those who do work hard and who seem to come out with less and less
every year. There are a number of main issues here:
1.
The E-toll great it’s capped at R550 (a week’s
worth of food to a family of four in a lower middle class setting.) but wait we’re
going to push the full levy up by 20c and add 8c for the RAF. Give with one
hand take back with two. The Government then further stated don’t try to fight
this action. The second problem is the E-toll has too many profit motivated
parties involved all of which want money now. The third problem is come year
and that subsidy from the government is needed elsewhere and we all have e-tags
linked to our accounts the Government can increase the tolls as much as they
want. (Petrol due to our poor Rand is expected to increase by 30c so that’s a
68c increase on the way)
The counter argument is use public
transport. We have an expensive Gautrain that’s prone to strikes and thus never
truly reliable. We have taxis that are un-roadworthy and will shoot at metro
police or each other at the drop of the hat. So yet again we are forced to
accept something and have no recourse.
The NHI, scheduled to begin testing in 2013 in
KZN. Daily you hear about the horror stories in Government hospitals; this is
like free advertising for medical aids so that you can usea private hospital in
an emergency. So the Government now
needs money for the NHI, where fees are based according to how much you earn,
thus people on medical aid are now being coerced gently at the moment by a
reduction in the tax deduction one gets for having a medical aid to consider
the NHI. The deduction was reduced from R720 to R320, so it’s a case of yet again
give with one hand take back with two.
Dividend tax (withholding tax) means less for
pensioners invested in shares or pension plans invested in shares. Capital
Gains tax means you lose more on selling those Kruger Rands and your house that
you’ve cared for and expanded and upgraded. That business you invested in or
own will also bring back less at the end of the day. The government seeks to
encourage job creation but does the above? Ooh but the tender process will be
more fair and transparent. Yet again more admin delays and more not being done.
Give with one hand take back with two.
The counter argument the government wants to
encourage people to save and move away from living lavish lifestyles funded by
credit yet they do this? If people save that money can be used to invest in projects
to generate jobs, but now we have further erosion of our savings, due to poor
inflation management and these new taxes.
The
government can control the biggest problem with our budget the ever growing
social grant dependents/tax dependents and the shrinking tax base. There are
two important variables the number of children being born in poorer communities
is ridiculous, they should seek to incentivise having less so that these kids
can be financially supported in regards to their education, mental and
emotional welfare and health. The number of illegal immigrants is this country
is staggering. The money paid to those working in the informal sectors mostly
leaves the country and does not pay for the services they enjoy.
At the end of the day one should think to themselves wow I
have the African Sunset, people that are always willing to help a stranger,
people who will greet you as you walk on the road, the Big Five and many other
wonderful things the make our country amazing… But this all comes at a price.
To those semi illiterate who will soon daily be reminded by Mandela (a great
man with great vision) on our money who gave them their freedom please think
twice about your vote.
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