The official opposition has proposed a tax rebate system for both individual taxpayers and corporates to boost employment levels and spur economic growth.
The Democratic Alliance’s leader, Tony Leon, introduced a “solutions at work” document on Thursday proposing that business be allowed to deduct 150% of the first R2 000 per month of employees’ salaries for tax purposes.
“We also want to allow individual households to deduct up to R2 000 rand per month from their taxable income for permanent regular employment provided by them,” he proposed.
Asked if this would not put pressure on the fiscus, DA policy specialist Ken Andrew said the costs involved “would not be enormous”. He said it would amount to about R600-million of a tax cake of about R300-billion, which would be a small percentage of the budget, much of which would be made up by the new employees paying VAT on consumption.
Reacting to the ruling African National Congress’s pledge to create one million jobs through public works programmes, Leon said South Africans should not be fooled.
The ANC’s election promise — made at the weekend — that the expanded public works programme will provide one million jobs “simply lacks credibility and will not solve the problem of unemployment in South Africa”, the DA said.
Arguing that loosening the grip of tight labour laws and regulations is key to unlocking wealth creation in South Africa, Leon said the public works programme “only creates short-term and part-time tasks — what the ANC’s own documents describe as work opportunities”. — I-Net Bridge