It is an astounding exercise to go through the numbers behind the annual national budget presented recently and to start to understand what it is that the various tax changes are aimed at achieving. On 22 February 2017, Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan presented South Africa’s biggest budget yet, providing for budgeted Government expenditure over the 2017/2018 fiscal year of R1.6 trillion (or R1,563,300,000,000!) Of this, by far the most significant portion will be spent towards social services to be delivered in the form of education, healthcare, social protection (grants), and local development and infrastructure: R884bn, or 56.5%, to be exact. […]