What lands in your bank account?
The headline number people Google in November: the take-home of your bonus, with the marginal rate explained and the RA-sacrifice saving made visible.
Inputs
Open a Sygnia RA in 5 minutes — sacrifice this bonus pre-tax
Low-fee SA retirement annuity. The deduction reduces this month's PAYE.
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Method
How this works
SARS taxes a bonus exactly the same way as salary — by adding it to annual income and applying the bracketed PAYE table. To find the tax attributable to the bonus, we run the calculation twice and take the difference:
- PAYE on annualised salary (less any regular RA contributions).
- PAYE on annualised salary + bonus (less any one-off RA bonus-sacrifice).
- The difference is the tax on the bonus.
The marginal rate shown is the highest bracket the bonus pushes you into — useful for deciding whether an RA top-up is worth the lock-in.
FAQ
Frequently asked
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