According to a March 2018 World Bank report, South Africa is ‘one of the most unequal countries in the world, and that inequality has increased since the end of Apartheid in 1994’.

In 2017 Statistics South Africa released a report which revealed that ‘almost 14-million people live below the food poverty line [R531 per month]; almost 30-million below the lower-bound poverty line [R758 per month] and 30.4-million below the upper-bound poverty line [R1 138 per month]. That is – one out of four South Africans is considered food poor’.

The 2018 Budget will significantly alter the statistics that were revealed in the World Bank and SSA reports.

This briefing paper will focus on what effect the increase in the taxes, especially the increase in value-added tax (VAT), will have on these ‘one in four’ South Africans that are food poor and thus most vulnerable to increases in the costs of basic necessities.

Briefing paper by CPLO