COSATU will present its outright and vehement rejection of government's anti-poor VAT hike to Parliament's Finance Committees at 12pm Wednesday, 25 April, E249, New Wing. The federation rejects the VAT hike as anti-poor and a regressive tax that will hit workers the hardest. It comes on the back of other taxes squeezing workers' dwindling wages, e.g. fuel, RAF, sugar sweetened beverages and below inflation adjusted income brackets.
Few measures are offered by government to help workers survive this onslaught. These take place in a 1% jobless growth rate, 36% unemployment and thousands of workers facing retrenchments.
Politicians and their friends and families are the cause of the corruption and wasteful expenditure across the state and our SOEs, as well as the crises at SARS, not workers. Yet the tab for their looting and mismanagement is now dumped upon workers.
COSATU has made numerous proposed alternative taxes to help government address its revenue shortfall and debt crises. Yet in the 2018 budget government has shown an appetite only to tax workers. COSATU has made proposals to expand VAT exempt products to other foods, medicines, sanitary pads, essential toiletries and essential water and domestic electricity. Yet government is moving with great lethargy to consider these.
Government must not forget that it is workers and not those who have looted the state who elect them every five years. Workers are watching and expecting government to get its act together and to come with a serious plan to help the poor and to lessen the tax burden upon workers. To date, government has been found badly wanting by workers.
