On the redistributive impact of the personal income tax: Evidence from South Africa

Nadine Riedel and Ida Zinke

No wp-2025-17, WIDER Working Paper Series from World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER)

Abstract: South Africa is one of the most unequal economies globally. In this paper, we examine the design of its personal income tax (PIT), with a focus on its redistributive function. We apply the Pfähler decomposition method to analyse the redistributive effects of key components of the South African PIT system, including the marginal tax rate schedule, the definition of gross taxable income, and the provision of tax deductions and tax credits.

Keywords: South Africa; Personal income tax; Decomposition methods; Redistribution; Tax expenditures; Income distribution (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.wider.unu.edu/sites/default/files/Publ ... sonal-income-tax.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp-2025-17

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in WIDER Working Paper Series from World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Siméon Rapin ().