2025 Budget Speech: SACP rejects idea of VAT increase

JOHANNESBURG - The South African Communist Party (SACP) has outright rejected the idea of a value-added tax (VAT) increase in Wednesday’s budget speech.

There are talks that African National Congress (ANC) top officials are in support of a proposal by Finance Minister Enoch Gondogwana to give the green light for a tax hike.

The SACP said it believes that suggestions to increase VAT were part of a wider propaganda campaign.

It also warned that this move would have far-reaching political implications and cause even more devastation for the working class and the poor.

The SACP said that the ANC and its allies campaigned by promising to get its government to tackle the high cost of living crisis.

It said this meant prioritising food security through VAT exemptions on essential goods, and not hiking taxes.

The party, which is opposed to the inclusion of the Democratic Alliance (DA) in the Government of National Unity (GNU), said that increasing VAT would hurt the working class and the poor.

Its national spokesperson, Alex Mashilo: "You are plunging them deeper into hunger. Poverty I can see, poverty is something you can struggle to define, you are just plunging them deeper into hunger… that cannot be the way forward."

Mashilo said the party was once again left out in the cold, with the ANC not consulting with it on the budget policy statement.

"So, the best is to communicate our positions publicly, as an independent organisation and to avoid being confined behind closed doors, where no one knows what our position is."

Finance Minister Enoch Gondogwana is set to deliver his budget speech at 2pm.

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