On Tuesday Sanlam chief economist Jac Laubscher told parliament's select committee on finance that taxes were already too high and that government spending would need to be cut. He said the tax to GDP burden had risen considerably above government benchmarks of 25 percent to 32 percent and compared to an average of 18 percent for other middle-income countries.

Government is considering raising taxes because expenditure is high and tax revenue this year has collapsed by R70-billion. Laubscher said South Africa's bureaucracy was too big and that salaries alone now constituted 57 percent of payments.

Backing Snyman and Laubscher's call is Wednesday?s Financial Stability Review from the SA Reserve Bank which shows that eight of 13 indicators signalled households were in distress:

• Household incomes on average have dropped 4.3 percent;

• There has been an 8.7 percent decline in household net wealth;

• A fall of 10.1 percent in the value of household financial assets;

• Household debt is 47.1 percent of GDP up from 46.3 percent.

Car sales? What car sales?

Total new car sales are down by almost a third (29 percent) with large drops in commercial vehicles (26 percent) and heavy vehicles (49 percent), according to the National Automobile Association this week.

"Economists are warning that if you overtax the productive classes they will begin finding it too difficult to increase their businesses which mean job creation will stagnate. And while poorer South Africans burn tyres in the streets to protest, better educated South Africans remain silent but go to the embassies of Australia, Canada and England and look for opportunities elsewhere in countries where tax may be as high, but schools, healthcare and safety better.

"We are very concerned at the fact that we are increasingly getting members of parliament, corporate executives and professionals sitting in debt counsellors' offices and weeping because they can no longer cope with their financial burdens," Snyman said.

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