I was catching up on the headlines in Le Monde yesterday, and a report on the 2026 French budget really caught my eye. Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu was at the National Assembly on Tuesday, effectively forcing the revenue side of the budget through without a vote by using Article 49.3. It was a stark reminder of how high the stakes are for taxpayers right now. While the French government is trying to spare the average household from direct income tax hikes, they are leaning heavily on the ultra-rich and major corporations to bridge a massive deficit. It’s a tense, high-wire act of balancing fiscal discipline with social concessions — a scene that feels all too familiar as we navigate our own budget season this January.
The real high-wire act for consumers, ordinary citizens and pensioners in this country is facing the January reality of increased expenses across the board. In 2025, virtually everything went up: monthly payments, groceries, petrol, electricity, rates and taxes — all of it. Some of those increases, particularly the medical aid ones, which remain a massive sore point, have only landed now. And in 2026, we are facing another hiding. All those companies will jack up their prices again — the cost of medical care, housing, electricity, water, refuse, food, living itself.
Where, exactly, are we meant to find the extra money? If last year delivered cumulative increases of around 10% across the board, and this year brings another average 10%, where does a household find 20% growth in income? It’s unbelievable how South Africans are being squeezed.
For political reasons, you can see the French are trying not to hit ordinary people directly, instead gunning for the ultra-rich. Yes, France has a significant number of ultra-rich citizens. In South Africa, there are ultra-rich individuals too, but nowhere near enough of them to propel this economy or carry the tax burden. And remember the fiasco around the 2025 South African national budget? The ruling party — which seems to rule alone despite being part of the GNU — wanted to hike VAT by 2% or more. It was horrific.
I still blame the old National Party for introducing General Sales Tax in the 1970s. GST was introduced in 1978 by Dr Owen Horwood under the National Party government, starting at 4% as part of a shift toward indirect taxation. Today, that tax — now dressed up as VAT — sits at 15%. This government is itching to push it to 20%. Watch this space.
The private sector, with its cunning and rapacious instincts, tries to finesse the increases it imposes. Discovery Health is a classic example — hugely successful, yet endlessly gouging its members. But central and metropolitan governments don’t even bother with finesse. They simply plunder.
They plunder money from compliant taxpayers while allowing large-scale tax avoidance to flourish. Money is channelled through family members’ accounts, through schemes and structures that never seem to attract consequences.
Even private individuals are siphoning income to family members. Others are hiding income and telling the municipality that they are indigent to escape local rates and taxes. These people should be investigated and be subjected to a lifestyle audit.
Yet let a regular taxpayer show a tiny unexplained amount in their account, and they’ll be nailed instantly.
At metropolitan level, the thievery continues unabated. City Power, supposedly there to serve the people, is now actively screwing them. In Cape Town, the electricity network charge sits at around R300. In Johannesburg, it’s close to R1,000 — more than three times the amount. And what do residents get in return? Very little of that money is ploughed back into the city or its neighbourhoods. We all know the reality: potholes, broken traffic lights, burst water mains, rolling electricity outages.
Yet these are the same people who talk about Johannesburg as a “world-class African city”. That slogan, pushed so enthusiastically during Parks Tau’s mayoral term, now reads like tragic satire.
January is a tough month for everyone. Those “buy two, get one free” specials may look appealing at the beginning of the month, but as a radio commentator on RSG pointed out this morning, most people can’t afford those deals by mid-month. Many consumers have also wised up to supermarket tricks designed to make you buy more. Take cake flour: you can only buy it in one-kilogram bags now. The half-kilogram option has quietly disappeared.
January is hard. Brace yourself for February, when national budget talk ramps up in earnest. And prepare yourself for what these income thieves are planning next.
