If we’re going to be fair though, the SA Taxi industry exists as a direct failure of government. Government failed to provide a public transportation network for the millions of people who were & continue to be affected by spatial planning. Black people then made a plan.

Of course no one is saying they shouldn’t pay tax but I always find it a bit weird when we put the evident shortcomings & faults of our economic setup on the shoulders of “informal traders”. If government was doing what it was supposed to do, none of this would be a problem.

Some taxi owners only take home about R 7k net pm. It’s costly to run a taxi guys! The turnover may be high but the CPK is not a joke either. There’s a reason why things are the way they are.

Trust me when I tell you that even if majority of the owners were fully compliant, it wouldn’t result in much more of a tax collection in most cases. There’s only a few owners that get to the point of owning a fleet relatively speaking. Plus some are uneducated.

Instead what we need to do, is look at the value of their service economically, not just financially. You’ve been speaking about essential services for the past 90 days. It doesn’t get more essential than taxis in SA. They are the veins to SA’s economic body!

So yeah, fine... maybe they don’t pay income tax, PAYE, UIF etc. but in the greater scheme of things, they contribute a whole lot more to the economy than most sectors put together. Subsidise them, they deserve it!