The Effectiveness of Tax Relief Initiatives on SMEs in South Africa
Tax relief initiatives have been introduced by the South African government in order to assistsmall business to grow and become sustainable. The high failure rate of businesses coupled with thealarmingly high rate of unemployment in the country is the main reason the government embarked onthese initiatives and strategies. The different tax initiatives available to qualifying small businessesinclude small business corporation tax and turnover tax. The research has been undertaken to determineif small business tax initiatives introduced by SARS are effective and are being utilised by smallbusinesses. A questionnaire was sent to eighty five small business owners to determine if they are awareof small business tax and turnover tax and also to determine if they are utilising these initiatives. Thefindings from this study reveal that approximately half of the respondents do not know about thesespecific tax initiatives. Only a small percentage of small business are eligible for small business tax andnone of the respondents in the sample are eligible for turnover tax. The majority of small businessowners agree and strongly agree that the initiatives introduced by the government are ineffective andneed to be revised.