Tax bracket & marginal rate

The fast answer: your tax bracket sets your marginal rate (the rate on your next rand), not the rate on your whole income. Enter your taxable income, age band and year below and the calculator reads the SARS rate tables through the same engine as the full workspace: it shows the band you land in, your marginal rate, your effective rate (total tax after rebates over your income, always lower than the marginal rate), and the age rebates and tax threshold that apply. Every figure is calculated, not guessed.

Open the tax bracket calculator →

Marginal rate vs effective rate

South Africa taxes individuals on a sliding scale: the first slice of taxable income is taxed at 18%, the next slice at a higher rate, and so on up the bands. Two rates come out of that, and confusing them is the single most common tax-bracket mistake:

• Your marginal rate is the rate on your next rand of income. It is the rate of the band your taxable income currently sits in. A raise, a bonus or a withdrawal is taxed at this rate (until it pushes you into the next band).
• Your effective rate is your actual tax as a share of your income: total tax after the age rebates, divided by taxable income. Because only the top slice of your income is taxed at the marginal rate, and the rebates come off the total, your effective rate is always well below your marginal rate.

Moving into a higher bracket never taxes your whole income at the higher rate. Only the rand above each band threshold is taxed at that band's rate. The band bar under the result makes this visible: your income marker sits inside one band, and only income past that band's line would be taxed higher.

What the calculator works out

For your taxable income, age band and year, the ledger shows:

• Marginal rate: the SARS band your income falls in.
• Effective rate: tax after rebates as a percentage of your taxable income.
• Age rebate: the s6(2) rebate for your age. Everyone gets the primary rebate; from 65 you add the secondary, and from 75 the tertiary. The rebate is subtracted from your tax, not your income.
• Tax threshold: the income below which no tax is payable. It is simply the point where your tax equals your rebates, so a bigger rebate (older taxpayer) means a higher threshold.
• Normal tax: the tax on your income before rebates.
• Tax after rebates: normal tax less the age rebates. This is the emphasised figure.

The numbers come from the SARS rate tables and rebates for the year you pick, so changing the year re-reads the correct bands automatically.

Worked example (show the workings)

Thandi is under 65, with R500,000 of taxable income in the 2026 year of assessment.

• Her income lands in the third SARS band, so her marginal rate is 31%: her next rand of income is taxed at 31%.
• Reading the 2026 rate table, her normal tax is R117,507 (the cumulative tax to the start of her band, plus 31% of the income above that band's threshold).
• Her age rebate is the primary rebate, R17,235.
• Tax after rebates: R117,507 less R17,235 = R100,272.
• Her effective rate is R100,272 over R500,000 = 20.05%, far below her 31% marginal rate, because most of her income was taxed in the lower bands and the rebate came off the total.
• The tax threshold for an under-65 taxpayer in 2026 is R95,750: below that income, the primary rebate wipes out the tax entirely.

So a "31% taxpayer" actually pays about 20% of her income in tax. That gap between the marginal and effective rate is exactly what the calculator makes concrete, rather than leaving you to assume the higher number.