Many other countries have removed value added tax (VAT) from chicken – so why can’t South Africa do the same?
This is the thrust of an editorial supporting the removal of value added tax (VAT) from chicken products, in the Poultry Bulletin – official journal of the SA Poultry Association (SAPA).
“Is it right that the basket of VAT-exempted basic foodstuffs in South Africa includes imported pilchards but no locally produced meat product?” asks editor Melinda Shaw.
“In other, much more affluent countries, VAT reductions or exemptions bring meat products within reach of their poorest citizens.
“In the UK, for instance, there is no VAT on raw meat and fish; in France half the regular VAT rate – 10% – is charged on raw meat and fish; and in Italy, meat and other basic foods come with 4% VAT compared to their standard VAT rate of 22%.
“We don’t know the malnutrition stats for these first-world countries, but in South Africa the horrifying reality is that 30% of children under the age of five suffer from childhood stunting due to malnutrition.
”Stunting is an entirely preventable, but irreversible condition, and closely linked to poverty and a diet lacking the nutrients, including protein, that is essential for normal, healthy physical and intellectual development. These children will have compromised health and never reach their full potential… a truly awful legacy not only for the adults they will become, but for our country as a whole.”
SAPA has just completed another submission to the National Treasury to advocate for the removal of VAT on individually quick frozen (IQF) chicken portions and chicken offal, those poultry parts most affordable for the majority of South Africans.
“We hope that sanity will prevail this time, and that the decision makers will realise that the question is not whether we can afford to implement this VAT exemption, but whether we can afford not to,” Shaw says.
