Thabiso Mvubu

Economist and Econometrician | FC Barcelona | Football

[Not Jerome Powell @alifarhat79]

Boomers with 19 paid off properties watching you spend 73% of your paycheck on rent

[𝐓𝖚𝖒𝖎 @_Itumeleng_K]

Baloyi se ba le advanced. Ba mphile ice tropez mo torong and ke e nwile le nna 😭😭

[Ms Rashel @rashel_256]

Things are not adding up 🤌😫💔😂

[iMbaliEnhle @mbalimosea]

2.0

[siihle. @nkosii_b]

real

[Thabiso Mvubu @justacuriouszn]

@sfisomahla14431 A keeper!

[L E S E D I @_Hybreed_]

Dithejane, jou lekker ding 🔥🔥🔥

[breeshskii✈️ @breeshkii]

This nigga generational 😭😭😭😭😭😭

[juju 💰 @ayeejuju]

how it feels texting women in 2026

[papi_ @PapiKhanyile]

Kuyahlangana bafethu! 🖇

[bum @BattleRapBum]

@FearedBuck will be using this

[Muzi @Muzi_Seasons]

I wish I saw your tweet earlier mina sengifile 💔😔😭😭😭😭

[Thabiso Mvubu @justacuriouszn]

@Qokani Bhuti, ngagcina ngiyikhokhile consultation fee but ngangakwazi ukutholokala if ufona due to loss of phone.

Can we work around that? I need to order.

[INFIL // EXFIL 🇿🇦 @InfilExfil]

It is not hard to understand why the South African economy isn't growing. The budget tells you why.

For every R100 the government has:

R32 - Salaries and wages of government employees
R16 - Interest on government debt
R14 - Day-to-day running costs
R32 - Transfers and subsidies (grants, municipalities)
R8 - Capital/infrastructure

About R11 out of every R100 is the whole Economic development function

Inside that R11:
R6 - Economic regulation and infrastructure
R2 - Industrialisation and exports
R1.50 - Agriculture and rural development
R0.80 - Science, innovation and technology
R0.50 - Labour / public works programmes

On top of this, the pipelines are still broken.
- Municipalities are still broken.
- Skills are short.
- The risk factor crime policy = capital flight.

[𝐀𝐘𝐄𝐃. 𝐏𝐔𝐘𝐎𝐋🥷🏻 @koCyrus6]

Ronaldo scored his 900th goal in September 2024 and has added just 79 goals since.

Messi scored his 900th in March 2026 and has already added 31. 😭

There will be some uncomfortable conversations today. 😭😂

[Sir Mqu 🖤 @visual_mqushulu]

Let's call it a day fellas....
Tomorrow we're working 👍🏾

[Khangisa (Prof. ) @Siyakhangisa]

48%.

That is the effective tax burden on someone earning R30,000 a month in South Africa. Same rate as someone earning R432,000 a month in a top European country.

The numbers sound wrong. They are not.

​​Where the 48% comes from.​​

PAYE is what people see on the payslip. It is not the whole picture.

VAT - 15% on almost everything. Every swipe. Every fill-up. Most people do not think of VAT as a tax. It is the largest single source of government revenue after income tax.

Fuel levy - built into every litre. Petrol at R26.92 inland includes roughly R3.80 in fuel levy and Road Accident Fund levy. That is a tax on getting to work.

Then there are the charges that look like fees but function like taxes. E-tolls. Municipal surcharges. Electricity tariffs with embedded levies.

Add the visible and the invisible - you get 48%.

​​The key difference with Europe.​​

In the Netherlands. In Denmark. In Germany. High taxes come with a social contract.

Free tertiary education. Universal healthcare that does not require medical aid. Childcare subsidies. Paid parental leave that covers an actual year. Robust unemployment support.

You pay 45%. And you get services back.

In South Africa you pay 48%. And then you pay again - privately.

Medical aid because public healthcare is collapsed. Security because policing is broken. Private schools because public education cannot be trusted. Solar panels or a generator because Eskom cannot guarantee power. Water tanks because the municipality cannot guarantee supply.

The middle-class earner pays twice. Once in tax. Once in escape.

​​Who actually pays.​​

There are about 8.3 million personal income taxpayers in South Africa. A relatively small slice of the population. The top earners supply most of the revenue.

Corporations optimise. The wealthy structure. Offshore trusts. Semigration. Emigration. The R30,000 earner cannot escape - it comes out before they see the money.

The base is narrow. The burden is concentrated. The services are not.

​​Why it accumulated this way.​​

No one designed this system. It grew.

Income tax funds the general budget. VAT funds the general budget. Fuel levy funds roads and the general budget. Each mechanism made sense when it was introduced. Each one expanded quietly.

Raising income tax visibly upsets people. Raising VAT is less visible - it is embedded in the price. Raising fuel levy is buried in the pump price. Municipal charges are non-negotiable.

The objective was not fairness to the middle class. It was revenue extraction with minimum political friction.

​​The uncomfortable part.​​

This is not a policy failure. It is a policy success. The system extracts efficiently. It offends quietly. And the people who carry it do not have the means to opt out.

The question is not whether 48% is too high.

It is how long the R30,000 earner can pay twice - once in tax and once in escape - before something breaks.

[142 Laws Beneficiary @BEEtycoon]

An efficient passenger rail system would increase the disposable income of a multitude of South Africans.

[Baby Pana @BabyPana23]

Imagine earning R15,000 a month, but after rent, food, transport, electricity, insurance and debt payments, you have almost nothing left. Then the price of everything goes up, but your salary stays the same. You are working every day, but still struggling to move forward.