ActionSA says DA was complicit in decision to increase VAT
Nokukhanya Mntambo 22 April 2025 | 5:46 ActionSA
Democratic Alliance (DA)
Value-added tax
Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana tabled the 2025 budget in the National Assembly in Cape Town on 12 March 2025. Picture: GCIS
JOHANNESBURG - As the Democratic Alliance (DA) hauls the National Treasury to court over the expected VAT hike, ActionSA said that the second-biggest party in the Government of National Unity (GNU) was also complicit in the raising of the standard rate.
The aborted budget in February included a controversial decision to increase VAT by two percentage points.
That was later revised down to one percentage point over two years.
But the proposal caused a political pushback led by the DA which has now approached the court to have the decision by Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana set aside.
With some conditions, ActionSA is among smaller parties that helped get the fiscal framework of the budget over the line in the National Assembly earlier in April.ActionSA's Alan Beesley said that the DA must have known about the increase ahead of time.
"ActionSA can today reveal, through a damning parliamentary reply, that the DA's deputy minister of finance, Ashor Sarupen, was intimately involved in the budget process, particularly in drafting the original 19 February Budget Speech, which included the deeply unpopular two percentage point VAT increase, as well as the subsequent revision to the split one percentage point increase, despite their denials."
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