The Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) has released a graph showing all of the additional environmental taxes that South Africans are currently paying.
The organisation said that these taxes have contributed a total of R103. 61 billion, but have not been clearly linked to real changes in behaviour.
“It would be disastrous if an issue as critical as climate change was used to simply raise more revenue by government without a clear link to behavioural change or an acceleration in climate change mitigation,” said Outa’s executive director, Dr Heinrich Volmink.
South Africa introduced a carbon tax this year, with a carbon levy on fuel and an emissions tax on businesses.
This is in addition to five other environmental taxes which already exist: the plastic bag levy (implemented from 2004/05); the incandescent light bulb levy (2009/10); the electricity levy (2009/10); the CO₂ tax on vehicle emissions (2010/11); and the tyre levy (collected by SARS from 2016/17).
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Environmental taxes must a) cause measurable changes in behaviour and b) be clearly used for environmentally beneficial purposes otherwise people will see them a most unwelcome cost.