Banker-turned-presidential hopeful Roger Jardine proposes R500bn wealth and pensions tax to reconstruct SA

I can't see anyone who stands to be over taxed more than they already are, agreeing to this so that the powers that be and their connected few can simply just steal more. How about stopping the patently corrupt pathological liars from looting and stealing whilst they are in the process of destroying the country?

If you look at all the indicators — poverty, malnutrition, infrastructure — it’s dramatic. If you look at the impoverishment, the state of decay and the trauma in this society, it is akin to one emerging from a war. Because of the seriousness of the social condition and economic condition, we need to see it through those lenses.” A vivid description by Mr Jardine, of the state of our country, yes, Mr Ramaphosa, you, the cronies before you, and the arrogant present people in power, new so well of the crumbling deteriorating effects of theft of a nations well being, is it that you do not comprehend the situation, not see failures of your policies, are so determined to shrug your shoulders to criticism, 'You wont be told, we do it our way, the way our brothers and comrades function in the rest of Africa, destruction, and 70 million South Africans have seen the outcome,must live and bear the brunt idleness and theft. Where's the Ubuntu, the so called rainbow nation, the democracy you praise you fought fore, and yes South Africa sighed a relief, when it came, and now, yes Mr Jardines words ring true, we are a nation 'akin to emerge from a war', punch drunk, anxiety for this beautiful countrys future, anger, a whole young generation uncertain about their future. We televise matric results, gleaming about improved results, and evertime, we wonder, where will they find a job, to earn a desceny salary, not the R350 grant, to lull the masses of a caring givernment. Where to now Mr President. Who now, to take us forward, who will stand tall, true leadership.

And there I thought "Here is someone who might have a handle on the real problem". Nope - Mr Jardine is not on the same planet as most cogent sane SA folk. Raise taxes?? You are nuts - we are over the top of the Laffer curve - I wonder if he has ever read about that? Do that and the gross tax income will drop. As will the number of HNWI on a permanent basis - now if he doesn't understand that let me use little words - rich folk and also middle class folk will emigrate and never come back hence never pay tax in SA again. Corporation will move HQ's to more tax friendly countries and guess what? Never come back again. Not a word about the root cause of over expenditure - BBEEE costs upwards of 30% of every Rand the Goonment coughs up on equipment, consumables etc and that is worth at least R300Bn pa. The bloated (Un) Civil (Dis) Service is another R100bn pa - time to do the 3 straw trick there (It's a simple procedure take 3 folk in the same position , let them draw straws, shortest is fired, of the two remaining put them in a second draw 6 months later, those with positive assessments get excluded, the balance draw straws, Bob's your uncle you have a streamlined public work force). No mate you are living under a rock somewhere and have no clue about real economics - talking to folk in Kliptown is not the answer.

This is just another form of socialism. Take from the rich and give to the poor, great idea on paper except most of the money will just move into the pockets of the government connected. What is left will fix nothing unless the underlying causes of the rot are sorted out first. Halve the amount of ministers, deputy ministers, advisors etc. Reduce the salaries of those who remain. Prosecute all those ministers who are suspected of corruption. Get rid of BEEEEEEEE. Reduce the size of the civil service dramatically. Remove the unions from any alliance with government. Encourage local business and manufacture with additional tariffs on imported goods, especially those originating in China. Perhaps once this is done we can move forward.

Stick to Banking. Reminds me of IDOLS, where everyone thought they could sing!

As most other commenters have already pointed out, the core of this proposal is to legalise additional theft from the taxpayer and dressing this deplorable plan up as a “Social Solidarity Fund,” variously a “Reconstruction and Growth Fund,” to make it easier to swallow. That’s very, er, Big Brother of Mr Jardine who says precisely nothing about streamlining and cleaning up existing governance structures, which would free up ample money to address most of his lofty goals. You can count on me *not* supporting this sort of devious, unsanitary madness.

Correct, we are a country at war. The ANC versus Citizens. The reality is that private capital is already redirected from growth assets and expansion into private solar and standby power solutions. Now they expect businesses must, in addition, give money to the State? Nobody has any expectation that the R500 billion will be spent effectively and efficiently. Expansion of the grants would eat R150 billion per year. How would that 1.5% wealth tax work? Net assets, net liquid assets? Directly owned wealth or indirectly owned through the company and tax structures that the really wealthy utilize? If somebody owns a R100m farm they probably (1) have huge debt on operating assets (2) don’t have R4.5m cash to pay this wealth tax for three years.

Sorry mate - but no. There is no more magic money tree. I am sure I speak for a lot of people, taxed to the hilt, watching those taxes literally stolen right in front of our eyes, with zero accountability. I intend to look after #1 from here on in.

I think most comments missed the point: if we don't pay now, we will definitely pay later. Sitting in body corporate meetings, where one needs to consider special levies, this is exactly the case. We need to change something, now. Regarding the BBBEE issue, the manifesto mentions wholesale improvements to the entire administration - that will then deal with the myriad of legislative issues we have that have not brought about the change it intended. Personally, I like this. It reads more like a turn-around strategy than the other manifestos I've read. I am warming up to this idea of ChangeStartsNow.

first manifesto that doesn't just harp on what we already know, but identifies where the most impactful interventions can happen, how to finance these and how the finances should be managed and the mulitplier effect of said interventions. The fact that there is a specific timeline for the envisaged taxation, shows that a lot of thought and planning has gone into this manifesto.

Proper population growth control is essential. Encouraging population growth by increasing social grants is exactly the opposite of what's needed.

The only people more tone-deaf to the reality of economic hardships than politicians are bankers. When a banker becomes a politician, hide your wallet.

Dear Roger, you cannot tax a country into prosperity, that is a very basic principle you should understand. You can create a climate for economic growth, and that will create prosperity for all of our citizens. I agree with you that RSA is in post war situation

Shifty-eyed cadre banker unable to criticise the ANC, unwilling to get the loot back from the state looters. More taxes? How original. -not!

No. This is not the easy way out because you will only levy more taxes on those that are already in the tax net, as opposed to taxing those that habitually hide income and profits and evade taxes. In addition, more taxes will simply go down the same big black hole of irregular, wasteful and corrupt spending. We can agree that a Martial Plan, and substantial additional tax revenue, is necessary, but South Africans will reject this like we rejected eTolls, not because we don't want to pay taxes but because we won't pay more taxes until the tax evaders pay their fair share and the fiscal discipline is in place.

Another looter can’t build just dilute.

The problem with socialism is that it all collapses when you run out of other people's money. We're already in that place now, so taxing people more will create a further dis-incentive for the private sector to invest and grow their businesses and for individuals to work harder to earn more. Economics 101, Mr Jardine. Maybe you and your advisors missed that lecture.

Recover the BILLIONS looted from the State, i.e. State Capture, Zuma's illegal defense expenditure, Eskom, Transnet, SABC, Telkom SA PostOffice etc corruption and it will not be necessary to tax the working class who keeps this country running! A tax on the "wealthy" and pensions are not the way to go. Is that the best you can come up with?

Creating Jobs based on infrastructure development has the same life span as the 3 year fund. Then what. We are in this crises because of theft. This man is proposing to lift corporate tax and income tax. The 5 million temporary jobs you create for infrastructure development will see the same amount of Jobs lost as corporates seek greener pastures due pressure on the bottom line, lack of profit to expand and create Jobs. You will shrink the economy. Another issue is who will get the contracts for the infrastructure develoment and what will the criteria be. Will it be new jobs or will same old connected companies who outsource, over price and dont complete the jobs get the go ahead.

As former chair of FirstRand, raising R500B seems doable. FirstRand make R10B in profit last year, they alone could easily stomach a Billion in extra taxes, per year. But to suggest that as an opening line in your election manifesto is just arrogant and delusional. Nobody likes paying more taxes, but at the end of the day, most DM readers would probably be OK with paying more taxes if it got the job done. But the political reality is that your campaign Roger is a day late and many Rands short. Another one of the 298 political parties that will just take away votes from the DA. And welcome to the Weimar Republic.

“Ring fenced” is key. Otherwise more of the same endless trough feeding

Surely we must have learned that the Government, especially our Government, is not very good at running things. Giving more money to Government sounds stupid to me. What about encouraging private enterprise to solve the problems by providing incentives. Much better to give than to take when trying to solve a problem!

"Change starts now?" More like "More of the same bullshit" I want to hear a politician START with prosecution. Drain the swamp. Punish the criminals. Then you can move on to removing every single SOE (SAA, ESKOM, TRANSNET, PORTNET, DENEL, SASOL etc etc ) sell EVERYTHING and let the private sector take control. Then abolish B-BBEEE, and all demographic based hiring legislation. Then go after the Guptas, the Zumas, the cigarette mafia and the booze mafia. Then go after the various Western Cape and KZN government linked gangs. Go after the scrap metal industry and the coal thieves. Then clean up SAPS and the SANDF, fix our borders and fix home affairs. THEN you can charge more tax... but then you wont need to!

First, we need the Nuremburg Trials, then you can come and talk to me about a Marshall Plan.

Top marks for putting feet on the ground to engage the neglected. Top marks for ambition and seeking solutions. Granted SA doesn't seem to have many viable options. Low marks for an apparent failure to note some obvious unintended consequences of your vision. It's short-term but it needn't be shortsighted. The connection between the economy and other sectors seems to be also missed. E.g., not much said about education, the quality of education being a very urgent matter that will and is confining the youth to eternal unemployment whilst foreign workers fill the lack of critical skills. We are thankful for the contribution of foreign workers in terms of skill and tax-base etc. But we must reduce social grants and crime.

Just for interest sake, for those who think these plans will bring the total tax rate higher than Scandinavian countries: Denmark: The top statutory personal income tax rate is 55.9%. Since Denmark does not levy separate social security contributions, the maximum individual tax rate would remain at 55.9%. Norway: The top personal income tax rate is 38.2%. Social security contributions (combined employer and employee) account for approximately 18.8% of total labor costs for a single worker with no children earning an average wage. Adding these contributions to the top income tax rate gives a combined rate of 57% (38.2% + 18.8%). Sweden: The top personal income tax rate is 52.3%. Social security contributions account for about 29.2% of the total labor costs for a single worker with no children earning an average wage. This results in a combined rate of 81.5% (52.3% + 29.2%).

You are going to do all of this with R500 billion? Well, what happened to the R600 billion from Covid that went awol within 3 months? I think this guy is way out of touch with reality. BTW Anthony Turton stated that fixing the water alone will cost R1 trillion.

Malema on steroids!!

Sorry, old chap, you have just lost my vote. In fact, you never had it.

more taxes ???

Yup, all this Tenderpreneurs he engaged with are super keen to contribute to his socialist levies, social justice don't you know, doing the right thing, etc.. Of course none of them are actually registered at SARS so hey, perfect solution.

Money alone will never solve the problems. A clean, competent government will create the correct environment to create the resources needed to restructure the country. The private sector is sitting on billions due to the hopelessly incompetent out of touch communist ANC.

> At the Alex taxi rank, I meet a guy just released from prison for stealing mealie meal I'm sure that's what he told you, but can you believe him? Bear in mind only 2% of robberies end up with a conviction (according to Wikipedia, I don't know the number for theft, but it's surely lower). Recently I encountered was a beggar who told me she has 9 children. Riiiiiiight. > That school hasn’t had electricity for three years, and there is almost a normalising of the dysfunction in the nation. I asked what the plan was, and there was no plan, so people were just not seen. We all know national government is defunct, but I think this school's principal and administration should at least partly be held to account. What have they done to try and address the situation (besides "waiting")? Why is there no power? Because of no connection, or perhaps because of unpaid bills? > This shouldn’t be seen as a wealth tax but as a social solidarity fund. It's a wealth tax and will create more incentive for wealthy South Africans, who are already best place to emigrate, to leave the country, thereby ending up paying zero tax and reducing the taxable income. Norway recently introduced a wealth tax, resulting in more emigration of the wealthy in one year than the last 13 years combined. Also, it's too late in the day for word games. There's no solidarity with thieves and crooks, and we all know this "fund" will be looted.

"...R500bn wealth and pensions tax to reconstruct SA..." Nê? All this means is that there will be more money to steal by whoever "governs" the country. Here's the thing: No matter WHO comes into power, they will be just as the corrupt ANC. Prepare to meet thy doom, RSA - you're already halfway there.

Really? Is that the best he can come up with? More taxation? He seems no better that the circus currently called government.

May I suggest that he looks at all those politically connected people who don’t believe the tax laws apply to them ….or don’t know how to fill in a tax return first before robing current tax payers already paying 48% of their earnings in taxes!

At last, a man with a plan !

After re-reading this article and some more thought about it I have decided I welcome Jardine and his manifesto. It is so populist and socialist that he can only draw votes from EFF or MK supporters and certainly not from the DA.

Hi Roger - go read up about the Laffer Curve. Then come back with some ideas that pie-in-the-sky fairy tales. Bzzz - thanks for playing. You are the weakest link.

Agreed, our beleaguered country needs some form of Marshall Plan, but the funding thereof needs careful consideration. Tapping the wealthy, corporates, and pension funds for R500bn seems the easy (read lazy) way out, smacks of populous rhetoric, and is tantamount to treating the citizenry and companies as the government’s personal ATM. Pension funds (ironically, in particular the GPF where poor investment choices in the past have affected the fund) need to be treated as sacrosanct and not an easy way to balance the books when government has a shortfall. Those who have been privileged to contribute into funds all our lives, have done so to not become a burden on the state in our old age. Taxing pension funds for short-term gain but long-term pain is not the answer! What guarantee is there that it would only be 3yrs? Circa 1979, a “loan levy” was exacted that was repaid. If your proposal was a “loan levy” compact, it would probably be more readily accepted...a fairer give and take. Perhaps some fiscal restraint and efficiencies, or recovery of State Capture billions (if not trillions) need to be considered before more taxes. Political mileage; immense! SARB reported states tax collection has almost quintupled from '79 to 2024 - R7.622bn (worth R267bn today) to R1,2 trillion. The population has merely doubled. Suggests enough in the coffers?! It's the allocation and efficiencies that need careful attention! Prosperity=trade, favourable conditions for FDI, fiscal prudency.

Not before you plug the colander, and that is a near impossible task unless you can round up and jail all the cadres.

Poor guy The moment I saw undefined inequality I knew I was in for disappointment. What is inequality? Is it wealth inequality or what we can call inequality of access? The inequality which the fellow is referring to appears to be wealth inequality. Wealth inequality is the favourite hobby horse of the cadres and their fellow travellers. It is politically sexy. It is wealthy inequality which will see R100b minimum go to addressing that in the form of preferential procurement or empowerment premium while the remainder will see leakages through incompetence etc. Are the poor concerned about wealth inequality at the top. No. For the poor inequality means inability to access good schools, quality health services, clean environments, decent accommodation, living environment, nutrition, warmth etc. That is basic needs. And in reality that is not inequality but poverty. The poor are not relatively deprived (like the cadres and tenderpreneurs think of themselves but are absolutely deprived (poverty). The impoverished are also found in RDP houses which should have been council housing stock and some being rent to buy not given for free. Jardine the ex cadre persists in the conflation of poverty and inequality and the same redistributionist not accompanied by productivity focused policies. According to the government the major driver of poverty is unemployment. Hence SA’s problems cannot be solved without solving the central problem of enabling households to earn incomes.

I was actually considering voting for him! I don’t fall into that tax bracket, but I do pay tax. And they will come after us at some point. And I am not previously advantaged. I can’t afford to leave. I love my Country and don’t want to leave. But it’s a really worrying, daily struggle. We pay massive taxes, pay for our kids’ schools, university, health care, armed response, housing, pension, electricity, rates, etc: we get very little back from the taxes we pay. We work ourselves to death. We consider selling our houses because the interest rate is strangling us. We can’t afford to leave… but our children will. If we have to give them everything we have, they need to go and find a better life somewhere, without this ever tightening noose around their necks. We’ll educate them and say goodbye. They’ll go grow another country’s’ economy. And with them goes our future leaders.

The only thing dumber and more arrogant than a politician is a banker

I hope no one votes for his political party. This is highly delusional; we have been fighting for no one to touch retirement funds. 500 billion Rand? What happened to the 500 billion Rand stimulus of Covid-19. Not everything that was supposed to!

R500 billion- a fraction of what has been stolen and "misspent". Why not try and get that back first? The rich are necessary and so many have fled already. So my vote is not going to Jardine. I expect more creative solutions. A skills and lifestyle audit of government staff would save millions by getting rid of the incompetent and corrupt. How much money leaves in the form of remittances earned by illegal migrants? Tax evasion and fraud along with the myriad white collar crimes cost us millions. All the unpaid bills even when people can afford it.

I know this is a cheap shot, but why doesn’t he start by giving away half of HIS wealth as an example. I’m afraid he’s just another political scoundrel out to line his pockets first, and screw the country.

"Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They always run out of other people's money" - MT

I was really hopeful about Jardine and the fact that he has support from business leaders. But after reading this I have lost all hope. A ToDo list with money thrown at it and no clue on how to implement it using thieving comrades. The war is not over, the enemy is everywhere.

Poor guy The moment I saw undefined inequality I knew I was in for disappointment. What is inequality? Is it wealth inequality or what we can call inequality of access? The inequality which the fellow is referring to appears to be wealth inequality. Wealth inequality is the favourite hobby horse of the cadres and their fellow travellers. It is politically sexy. It is wealthy inequality which will see R100b minimum go to addressing that in the form of preferential procurement or empowerment premium while the remainder will see leakages through incompetence etc. Are the poor concerned about wealth inequality at the top. No. For the poor inequality means inability to access good schools, quality health services, clean environments, decent accommodation, living environment, nutrition, warmth etc. That is basic needs. And in reality that is not inequality but poverty. The poor are not relatively deprived (like the cadres and tenderpreneurs think of themselves but are absolutely deprived (poverty). The impoverished are also found in RDP houses which should have been council housing stock to begin with (and not given for free) with some being rent to buy. Jardine persists in the conflation of poverty and inequality and the same redistributionist not accompanied by productivity focused policies of the cadres as an ex cadre. According to the government the major driver of poverty is unemployment. Hence SA’s problems cannot be solved without solving the central problem of unemployment. Putting incomes into SA households.