Every year at Budget Speech time, South Africans get concerned with how much we’ll have to cough up for petrol and beer in the year to come. These are worthy concerns, but there’s much more to the budget says Karin Muller, Head of Growth Market Solutions at Sanlam.

For starters, tax changes affect how much of our monthly salary stays in our pockets; what it will cost us when we sell certain assets and how much do we stand to gain should we save and invest more!?

As always, our Finance Minister had good news for some and, well, less good news for others…

On the up side, there’s news of personal income tax relief of R9,5 billion, mostly to the benefit of lower income earners, while the primary rebate for individual taxpayers will increase from R10 755 to R11 440, meaning a little extra cash in hand.

As expected, so-called sin taxes remained on the hit list this year: Duties on tobacco products will increase 5% to 8% – which means South Africans who smoke will ‘cough up’ more for their smoking habits…and if you enjoy an alcoholic beverage from time to time, the news isn’t much better.

Considering our poor status as a savings nation, government is keen to create incentives to help us improve on this front….hence the focus in this year’s budget on ways to make voluntary and retirement savings more attractive.

But get the full picture by clicking on Karin’s commentary right here!