A Wealth Tax for South Africa - HAL-SHS - Sciences de l'Homme et de la Société Accéder directement au contenu
Pré-Publication, Document De Travail Année : 2021

A Wealth Tax for South Africa

Résumé

This paper considers the feasibility of implementing a progressive wealth tax to collect additional government revenue to both reinforce fiscal sustainability in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis and reduce persistent extreme inequality in South Africa. Drawing on our new companion paper, we first identify the tax base and discuss the design of potential tax schedules. Testing alternative tax schedules, we estimate how much additional revenue could be collected from a progressive tax on the top 1% richest South Africans. Our results show that under conservative assumptions, a wealth tax could raise between 70 and 160 billion Rands—1.5% to 3.5% of the South African GDP.We discuss in turn how sensitive our estimates are to assumptions on (1) mismeasurement of wealth and (2) tax avoidance and evasion, based on the most recent tax policy literature. We examine technical issues related to the enforcement of the tax, and how third-party reporting and pre-filled declarations could be used to optimize measurement of taxable wealth and minimize evasion and avoidance opportunities. Finally, we explain how this new tax could interact with other capital related taxes already in place in South Africa, and discuss the potential impact on growth.
Fichier principal
Vignette du fichier
2021-02.pdf (663.78 Ko) Télécharger le fichier
Origine : Fichiers produits par l'(les) auteur(s)

Dates et versions

halshs-03131182 , version 1 (04-02-2021)

Identifiants

  • HAL Id : halshs-03131182 , version 1

Citer

Aroop Chatterjee, Léo Czajka, Amory Gethin. A Wealth Tax for South Africa. 2021. ⟨halshs-03131182⟩
849 Consultations
444 Téléchargements

Partager

Gmail Facebook X LinkedIn More