- President Cyril Ramaphosa announced plans to change the range of food items exempt from VAT in South Africa
- High food inflation has impacted poor households in South Africa
- The National Treasury already zero-rates many basic foods
- Challenges in making more foods VAT-exempt include legislative complexity and definitions
- Proposed changes are not new and aim to alleviate financial pressure on poorer households
- Difficulty in defining items on the list to prevent abuse
- Government may lose more VAT revenue than expected through changes in the exempt list
- Deputy Finance Minister estimated government loses over R30 billion annually from existing VAT-exempt items
Source: businesstech.co.za
Note that this post was (partially) written with the help of AI. It is always useful to review the original source material, and where needed to obtain (local) advice from a specialist.
