WTF - Tax in South Africa

If there is one thing that takes the cake in South Africa it's the high rate of tax that we pay and the little we get back for it. I am not averse to paying tax. After all, if you want services, you need to pay for them. But we pay a high rate of tax and get absolutely nothing back. And if you add up income tax, VAT, the petrol tax, rates and taxes and so on, you will find that the average middle class person, upon which the economy is built, is giving more than half of everything they earn to the government. And what do they get for working over two weeks every month for that government? Barely anything worth mentioning. If you want to be protected from the rampant crime, you have to pay extra for private security because you can't rely on (or even trust) the police. If you get sick, you have to pay extra for private hospital care because if you go to a public hospital, there is a good chance that you will end up worse off than when you went in, if you aren't robbed or assaulted or insulted by those who work there. If you want a decent education for your kids, you have to send then to a private school where the Mathematics pass rate is not 30% and where 23 year old thugs aren't running drugs from the playground. In other words, for the basic services that every democratic government is supposed to provide for its people, security, health and education, South Africans have to pay extra if they want just a decent standard of service.

So, the ANC South African government fails to deliver to all (perhaps there is some equality in the country after all). What is more, and adding isult to injury, the government ministers use our tax money to take themselves and their comrades overseas on luxury trips. They go on "fact-finding missions", on "brain-storming sessions" and on "promotional tours", all involving a lot of sightseeing and shopping and staying in five star hotels and precious little else. They also award themselves high salaries and get to drive luxury cars, shamelessly snapping at any who dare criticise them and waving the Rules of Parliament or other such document about in their chubby little hands to justify their actions. And, obviously, if we complain, we are called elitist white racists. Yes, I know that the ANC government has built a million or two free RDP houses for the poor and provided water and electricity for many who didn't have. But I don't care. I am not part of their struggle for freedom. I am a tax payer and a citizen and whether they like it or not, they have a duty to provide what they undertook to provide. I have my own needs, as does every South African, and it is their job to see to my needs. And that includes decent security, health and education for my kids. I have as much of a right to those services as the poor black person in the boonies afforded a free RDP house. But they don't get that. They don't get it that they have responsibilities - that they are public servants. That's right Jacob ... you are my servant. You want respect, you earn it by doing what you are supposed to.

Imagine you were paying a company for a service to be delivered. Imagine that the company you were paying had as poor a record of service delivery as the South African government. Customers would take their business elsewhere and the company would go out of business. So why do we have to put up with the ineptitude and blatant wasting of resources by the government? Surely we could withold taxes? We pay them to do a job and they aren't doing it. So why pay them?

Imagine we all stopped paying taxes. Imagine the panic as they try desperately to start doing the jobs they are supposed to but don't even know where to begin. Imagine the chaos as they desperately figure out how they are going to afford to pay their bloated salaries at the end of the month.

Perhaps witholding taxes would be going too far but the people of South Africa need to start making their voices heard and demanding action from elected ANC officials. Our country is crumbling into disrepair and it will soon be a ruin like most countries in Africa unless we get the ANC government to do what they are supposed to do - serve us, the people.