So now we know; a National Health system is going to be introduced that will require additional funding of R125 billion next year.

This will not be the whole cost once it is fully implemented, just the first trial phase. The year after it will double again.

Total tax take at the moment is around R 575 billion; that is all taxes and not just income tax. It has been announced that the Health Insurance is to be paid for by raising income tax.

This will mean that extra income tax paid next year by every tax payer will require, from the numbers we have been given, something of the order of an extra 40% of income tax must be paid.

If this year you as an individual have been paying R10,000 per month, next year it will be over R14,000 per month.

And don’t forget we will all be paying R40 cents per kilometre for road tolls; you remember; all those taxes, fuel levies that we all have been paying for years and was supposed to pay for the roads is no longer enough; we all must pay more – much more.

A tax-paying, law-abiding citizen, next year, just from these two measures alone, earning around R400,000 per annum, will have to cough up additionally to the Fiscus around R5,000 per month.

Never mind that the Government has already increased electricity, rates and every other “levy” managed in the sphere of Government or quasi-government parastatal sectors by around  40% every year for the past three years or more, they will still expect us all to additionally cough up.

Governments, particularly ours, have voracious appetites to spend our money. It is surely time when we all said “no more”.

Tags: #National Health