Carbon tax: up to R6bn rise in SA transport bill

Engineering News Online reports that, according to global logistics and supply chain company Imperial Logistics, a division of the Imperial international industrial services group, government must not only assess the direct impact of its proposed carbon tax on the South African economy, but also count the indirect cost of the tax on the competitiveness of the country's logistics and supply chain sector and the impact it will have on consumers and end-users.

South Africa's consistently high cost of logistics, which came in at 13.5% of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2009, will be negatively impacted by the proposed taxation levels, says Imperial Logistics CEO Marius Swanepoel, adding that the proposed carbon tax will need to be "counteracted with greener, more efficient supply chains." According to Dr Jan Havenga, head of the Stellenbosch University Centre for Supply Chain Management, the total cost of logistics will be around 15% of GDP for 2010. Havenga told Engineering News Online that the transport sector paid around R12-billion in company taxes in 2009.

"A carbon tax could increase the effective tax rate of the industry by at least 14.5%," Havenga says. "This would, in all likelihood, make South African logistics costs much higher and would mean that the competitiveness of the country would be under further threat." Swanepoel says calculations indicate that a carbon tax on transport emissions will push up South Africa's total transport industry bill by between R1.8-billion and R6-billion a year - a cost the industry can ill afford.

Read the full article on www.engineeringnews.co.za.