This publication Value-Added Tax (VAT) Audit: Summary of Considerations and Activities by the African Tax Administrator’s Forum (ATAF) Tax Programmes Department observes that proper planning and execution of VAT audits are likely to increase VAT revenue collections. ATAF defines a VAT audit as “a planned and documented activityperformed by tax officials to determine through in-depth review and examination:a. the adequacy […]
This is the title of a chapter I wrote for the recently published Oxford Handbook of the South African Economy. This is a very comprehensive publication with 47 chapters covering a wide variety of topics relating to the political economy, the primary sectors, energy, the environment, trade industry, regulation, the labour market, distribution, social policy, and the macroeconomy. In the […]
After the Medium Term Budget Policy Statement 2021 (MTBPS – or “mini-budget” as it is more colloquially known) tabled on 11 November 2021, two insighful commentaries. The first by Michael Sachs (former head of the Budget Office in the National Treasury of South Africa) contends, inter alia, that the sharp fiscal contraction of more than 10% per annum in real […]