edward222 (OP)
|
|
November 13, 2015, 10:07:53 AM |
|
Credit to: Tax News : Sharper tax focus on small businesses, cash economyTHE South African Revenue Service (SARS) is planning to pay more attention to ensuring that medium and smaller companies, and those in the “cash economy”, pay their taxes. This comes after several years in which the focus has been mainly on tackling non-compliance in the large business sector.
SARS group executive Randall Carolissen said the revenue service would shift some of its attention to the cash-based economy and medium and small companies because “we have seen considerable churn in that segment in the levels of compliance and the levels of payment, and we have seen some inexplicable behaviour”.
SARS is busy with a range of initiatives to close gaps in the tax system, particularly the base erosion and profit shifting initiative that tax authorities are pursuing globally. However, PWC director Kyle Mandy said although there was still a significant “tax gap”, the base erosion and profit shifting was not where the tax gap is — rather it is with small and medium-sized businesses and the cash economy. hhhmm Your thoughts guys?
|
|
|
|
pitham1
Legendary
Offline
Activity: 1232
Merit: 1000
|
|
November 14, 2015, 03:49:10 AM |
|
As economies tend to develop, there will be a natural shift from the cash economy to a cashless economy. The South African revenue authorities don't have to worry too hard about this.
In any case, I don't think they are looking at Bitcoin at all.
|
|
|
|
Amph
Legendary
Offline
Activity: 3248
Merit: 1070
|
|
November 14, 2015, 07:37:25 AM Last edit: November 15, 2015, 08:43:13 AM by Amph |
|
i think they have a long way to regulate something like bitcoin and prevent evasion which are occuring in many other place already , let alone africa with their ancient infrastructure
they are lucky that right there bitcoin is not very popular, so maybe there is no tax evasion for the time being
|
|
|
|
pitham1
Legendary
Offline
Activity: 1232
Merit: 1000
|
|
November 15, 2015, 04:46:09 AM |
|
i think they have a long way to regulate something like bitcoin and prevent evasion which are occuring in mny other place already , let alone africa with their ancient infrastructure
The absence of infrastructure is not always bad. You can "leapfrog" to a better technology. Lot of areas in Africa don't have traditional wired telephones. However, they now have access to mobile telephones. Similarly, they might not have bank accounts but m-pesa is a hit.
|
|
|
|
Fraxinus
Legendary
Offline
Activity: 1274
Merit: 1000
|
|
November 15, 2015, 07:59:41 AM |
|
They can't regulate such a thing as bitcoin so it's fair to say it won't happen and won't have much success.
|
|
|
|
pitham1
Legendary
Offline
Activity: 1232
Merit: 1000
|
|
November 16, 2015, 02:56:28 PM |
|
They can't regulate such a thing as bitcoin so it's fair to say it won't happen and won't have much success.
They are just starting to monitor the "cash economy". It will certainly be easier to monitor bitcoin transactions. The blockchain is essentially a ready made ledger.
|
|
|
|
RustyNomad
|
|
November 16, 2015, 03:17:50 PM |
|
Its about time they start doing this as cash only businesses are flourishing and hardly any of them pay taxes.
We all hate taxes but what is even worse than paying taxes is to see others who do not, resulting in your own tax burden increasing as the government has to find ways to increase their revenue and this usually means increased taxes.
For many there is no way past taxes as it either gets deducted directly from your salary and or you work in a sector and or industry that is already well regulated so little chance of getting away with not paying and or paying less than what is due. So in order for taxes to be 'fair' everybody have to pay their dues. If they do, it might result in the overall tax burden decreasing [wishful thinking].
I read an article awhile back on the taxes in South Africa where they analysed how many were paying how much and it was crazy. I will see if I can dig it up. According to that article, and I speak under correction, something like 2% of the taxpayers contribute about 75% of the tax revenue. So clearly there is a major problem.
|
|
|
|
RustyNomad
|
|
November 16, 2015, 03:24:08 PM |
|
Here is some links and quotes from those links... Therefore, based on this adjustment, approximately 3,2 million people were responsible for payment of 99% of all income tax in 2010/11. Approximately 2,1 million people paid 92% of all income tax and 1,4 million people, adjusted from 1,25 million, paid 82% of all income tax. http://www.mises.co.za/2012/03/how-many-taxpayers-are-there-really/A very interesting read. So out of a population of 50/60 million 2.1million, or about 3% paid 92% of the taxes. First article was from 2012 and second from Feb 2013.
|
|
|
|
zenitzz
|
|
November 16, 2015, 09:22:19 PM |
|
Here is some links and quotes from those links... Therefore, based on this adjustment, approximately 3,2 million people were responsible for payment of 99% of all income tax in 2010/11. Approximately 2,1 million people paid 92% of all income tax and 1,4 million people, adjusted from 1,25 million, paid 82% of all income tax. http://www.mises.co.za/2012/03/how-many-taxpayers-are-there-really/A very interesting read. So out of a population of 50/60 million 2.1million, or about 3% paid 92% of the taxes. First article was from 2012 and second from Feb 2013. We need to make an easier path to citizenship... Set up a system to register all that are here who are not citizens and tax their incomes. If they can pay taxes and live without public assistance and commit no crime for 3 years then make them permanent citizens.
|
|
|
|
countryfree
Legendary
Offline
Activity: 3066
Merit: 1047
Your country may be your worst enemy
|
|
November 16, 2015, 11:30:00 PM |
|
Poor hunters. They're not smart enough to catch Apple, Google and all the big firms which are the largest tax evaders in the world, so they go after the small fish. Long live cash! Long live BTC!
There's a lesson here. If you're small, or slow, or dumb, you'll end up in a trap.
|
I used to be a citizen and a taxpayer. Those days are long gone.
|
|
|
pitham1
Legendary
Offline
Activity: 1232
Merit: 1000
|
|
November 17, 2015, 01:05:03 AM |
|
Poor hunters. They're not smart enough to catch Apple, Google and all the big firms which are the largest tax evaders in the world, so they go after the small fish. Long live cash! Long live BTC!
There's a lesson here. If you're small, or slow, or dumb, you'll end up in a trap.
There are efforts being made globally to go after the big guys too. http://www.wsj.com/articles/crunchtime-for-global-tax-avoidance-push-1443376341 Nearly 50 governments are set to agree this fall to a new set of rules to clamp down on tax avoidance among multinational corporations. Their chance of success, however, is unclear.
If the rules work as planned, they will help ensure big companies pay tax on profits where they are earned, boosting revenues for governments, particularly in larger countries. Advocates say the stricter rules will make for fairer competition between small and large companies, since the latter gain an advantage by being better able to avoid tax.
The international effort was launched in 2012 as governments struggled to contain a surge in deficit-spending that followed the financial crisis and the global recession.
|
|
|
|
|