Registered taxpayers earning over R100 000 a year form about one-fourteenth of the total number of taxpayers but are paying almost half of the total income taxes collected in the 1997 tax year, according to figures supplied by the SA Revenue Services.
The figures show that R59,5 billion is expected to be collected in the form of income taxes in the tax year which ended in February. This figure includes both SITE and provisional taxpayers.
There were 7,3 million people registered for income tax during that tax year. It is estimated that about 26 percent of those who should be registered for income tax are not, but it is impossible to say whether the outright evaders are from the lower, middle or upper income groups.
In total, those earning over R100 000 form seven percent of income taxpayers but are paying 44,7 percent of taxes in the last tax year. As soon as a taxpayer earns R100 001 and over in any tax year he or she pays the top income tax rate of 45 percent.
Those earning between R100 001 and R150 000 a year are carrying the biggest burden. They make up 4,5 percent of individual taxpayers but pay 22 percent or R12,97 billion of the total collected from income taxes.
The figures translate into R129 304,91 paid per head a year by those earning over R200 000 a year while people who earn between R100 000 and R150 000 pay nearly R40 000 a year in taxes per head.
Those income groups are probably least likely to qualify for housing or education subsidies, and will not be able to claim benefits such as old age pensions or unemployment insurance.
At the other end of the spectrum, about 2,4 million taxpayers earn less than R20 000 a year and pay R266,9 million in taxes, or 0,5 percent of the total income taxes collected equivalent to about R111,21 a year each.
South Africans, even those who are not registered for income tax, also pay taxes such as the 17 percent paid by retirement funds, VAT at 14 percent, customs and excise, municipal rates, toll-road fees and the petrol levy. There are also suggestions of an additional levy being imposed on telephone calls, electricity and more taxes on petrol.
Most recently, hearings at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission have resulted in a suggested "reparations fund". Ways of raising money for this are being considered. This is additional to the so-called "transitional levy" or "RDP levy" which was imposed on income tax payers in the two years after the 1994 election to make amends for the past.
Members of the parliamentary finance committee decided in their report on the Katz Committee proposals on wealth taxes that there was no immediate need for changes but they would earmark the issue of tax avoidance and evasion and the redistributive role of taxes as a major theme in 1998.
Ernie Lai King, chairman of the South African Chamber of Business (Sacob)'s tax committee, said the parliamentary finance committee raised two issues: reparation taxes and avoidance.
"On reparation taxes, it is a two-pronged issue. Is it moral to have a reparation tax? If you accept that there is a collective guilt for the past, clearly it is.
"Is it practical? Clearly it is not. Once you accept a reparation tax then there must be a health tax and an education tax and in no time the tax take will amount to 40 percent of Gross Domestic Product.
"The second issue is tax avoidance, which is starting to amount to a sense of paranoia. This is confusing avoidance and evasion. Avoidance is doing what the Income Tax Act allows you to do for example, a company can declare capitalisation shares rather than a dividend because if it declares a dividend it incurs Secondary Tax on Companies. In that case, it is perfectly legal to declare capitalisation shares."