Warren Wilkinson, franchise principal & financial adviser at Consult by Momentum, breaks down the key insights and takeaways from yesterday's Medium Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS). Higher inflation is eroding purchasing power and has led...
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Medical scheme premium increases return
The lower-than-average medical scheme premium increases that members enjoyed in 2021 and 2022 are largely over. During the Covid-19 pandemic, medical schemes saw a decline in claims as members deferred elective procedures or were reluctant to seek...
The GEPF formula for calculating payouts
The Government Employees Pension Fund (GEPF) is a defined benefit fund. This means the pension received by a member has nothing to do with the investment performance of the fund. A member's pension payout is determined according to the GEPF...
Beware rogue online operators
Statistics from the Consumer Goods and Services Ombud (CGSO) annual report highlight the extent to which consumers are being defrauded by rogue online operators. The Covid lockdown saw an increase in the adoption of e-commerce, and many fraudsters...
Does a cellphone contract make financial sense?
Many people are tempted to take out a cellphone contract in order to get the latest device without shelling out a huge sum of money upfront. These contracts make the phone seem more affordable, but in reality, they cost you significantly more over...
Wealth tax: what you should know
Jashwin Baijoo of Tax Consulting SA considers the pros and cons of a wealth tax as a tool to address the huge wealth gap in South Africa. The idea of a wealth tax has been bouncing around in South Africa for a long time, and it became a topic of...
Scamsters are out in full force
There's been a concerning increase recently in the number of scamsters targeting South African consumers. This includes scamsters pretending to be representatives of your bank or your cellphone provider. There are SMS and email scams claiming your...
Listen: Does the value of the rand really matter?
In this podcast Maya (@mayaonmoney) talks to Michael Kruger, Senior Investment Analyst at Morningstar, to unpack the strange emotional relationship we as South Africans seem to have with the value of the rand. Kruger points out that when the rand...
It takes more than ticking a box to cease tax residency
The process to cease tax residency requires that you submit extensive documentation to prove your claim that you are no longer a resident of South Africa. An ITR-12 checkbox, indicating that a taxpayer has ceased tax residency in South Africa, is...
Reward programmes: get paid to spend
Reward programmes are becoming an integral part of our day-to-day financial management. It is no longer simply about getting a discount on your next purchase; these programmes have evolved so that you can now earn really meaningful rewards, which...
Previous Articles
Does the CPI reflect the “real” inflation rate?
The Consumer Price Index (CPI) is supposed to reflect the spending patterns of the average urban South African across various categories of goods and services. Each of these categories (food, fuel, education, rent, insurance etc.) has a fixed weight in the index. The...
Slow economic growth is the real issue
Rising prices and interest rates are relatively mild by historical standards, so why are we feeling so stressed? A lack of economic growth is why. While rising prices and interest rates may be draining our pockets, for middle- to upper-income earners, things are not...
SARS auto-assessment: what you need to know
Tax season has started, and while ordinary taxpayers have in theory until 24 October to file their returns, if you receive an auto-assessment, you only have 40 business days to verify and update the information. An auto-assessment is a pre-populated tax return based...
Use your medical tax credit to cover your medical expenses
Many South Africans are unaware that they qualify for a medical tax credit if they belong to a medical scheme. We have always had a tax benefit for contributions to a medical scheme. In 2012, SARS changed this benefit from a tax deduction to a medical scheme fee tax...
Working remotely: what are the tax implications?
If you are working remotely for a foreign company, lawfully meeting your tax obligations can become complex. Martin Bezuidenhout, expatriate tax attorney at Tax Consulting SA, explains. The Covid pandemic brought about a lot of changes in terms of how we work. It...
Save as you swipe
Several banks now offer a feature where you can “save as you swipe”, effectively creating a digital “change jar” into which you can save small amounts without even noticing it. FNB recently announced that its retail customers had accumulated over R2 billion in the...
Petrol price: parsing the pain at the pump
Petrol stations across the country were jam-packed on the last Tuesday of May as motorists waited in line to fill up ahead of the following day’s record increase in the petrol price. Old Mutual Wealth Investment Strategist Izak Odendaal analyses the ways in which high...
Loadshedding: counting the cost
South Africans are counting the cost of loadshedding – and it is significant. These are the findings of a survey conducted by InfoQuest/TrendER, a leading South African online research company. The survey interviewed 300 respondents, nationally representative of the...
What does the rate hike mean for the economy?
Carmen Nel, economist and macro strategist at Matrix Fund Managers, delves into the implications of last week's 50 basis-point rate hike by the Reserve Bank. At Thursday's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting, the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) hiked the policy...
Your personal information is never safe
With multiple breaches of personal information, consumers should assume they are compromised. Once again individuals’ personal data has been compromised, this time through a breach at credit bureau TransUnion South Africa. This follows a compromise of credit bureau...