Salary increases mainly get pocketed by the taxman

Employed South Africans, on average, received R15,299 in September, interbank payment service BankservAfrica said on Tuesday. Following August’s 4.7% jump, caused by government employees receiving their annual pay increases backdated to April, the growth in average take-home pay slowed to 2.2% in September. If inflation is taken into account, the average annual growth of South African salaries after tax and other expenses has only been 0.5% for the past five years, Economists.co.za chief economist Mike Schüssler said in BankservAfrica’s media release. “Interestingly, the BankservAfrica data reveals that there have been minimal increases to the average take-home pay since September 2013 — providing a strong indication of the struggling economy in the last five years,” Schüssler said. BankservAfrica’s take-home pay index shows that, while after-tax personal income has barely kept pace with inflation over the past five years, the amount companies need to pay their staff to achieve this...