Tag: taxation

While electric vehicles (EVs) have been globally touted as the future of road travel – the replacement to the internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles that we have been driving for over 100 years – the very mention of the subject raises polarising opinions, especially in the South African market.

“Don't harm your neighbour” is much better advice. This is a passive rule. It does not require you to do anything, just to refrain from doing some things. I believe the gap between these two rules summarises the gap in Western society between left and right, between Democrats and Republicans, between the kindly, caring, sharing, socialists and the individualistic, thinking, independent, self-reliant capitalists. Both sides passionately believe that their rule is the better one.

Inflation is the increase in prices over a specific period and which leads to a reduction in the purchasing power of money. The correlation between inflation and purchasing power is important because sometimes we are fooled into thinking that just because an amount increased, like your salary, your purchasing power remains the same.

The electricity crisis in South Africa is self-inflicted. This has become clear from the many costly disruptions in electricity supply over too long a period. There is something fundamentally amiss with government policy in this area. At the centre of the problem is Eskom, the leviathan which enjoys monopolistic protection shielded from potential competition.

South Africa ranks 99th out of 165 countries and territories included in the Economic Freedom of the World - 2022 Annual Report, we have released in conjunction with Canada’s Fraser Institute. It can be noted that in 2000, South Africa ranked 47th on the list of countries analysed.

A recent equal education report found that 80% of schools in South Africa are dysfunctional with endemic poverty, violence and a shortage of school materials plaguing these schools.

The private sector in South Africa is seen as an evil that must be heavily restricted if not expressly prohibited. For a country wherein government service delivery is poor to say the least, one would expect that private enterprise, which keeps us safe through the various security firms and healthy through the various hospitals, would be celebrated.

South Africa’s retirement outcomes will improve radically if all retirement funding contributions are kept invested when fund members change jobs. Other quick wins include increasing the minimum government pension; delaying the government retirement age beyond 60 years; and refocusing the industry from saving a lump sum at retirement to providing a sustainable income in retirement.

While the pandemic has had a dramatic impact on business and industrial landscapes, both locally and abroad, one of the industries that has had to adapt or die quickly is the automotive industry, in all its facets. This has meant rethinking the way it does business and what stimulus packages would help to get it firing on all cylinders again.

Legal Aspects of Financing Corporates covers the gamut of legal and taxation implications concerning the financing of corporates and will be of great use to postgraduate students in commercial law, corporate advisors, lawyers, in-house counsel, financial institutions and SARS employees.