IRR webinar alert: Cut VAT & BEE premiums in 2026 Budget

The 2026 Budget offers an opportunity for the National Treasury to reduce VAT and eliminate BEE premiums. A paper in the IRR's Blueprint for Growth series, produced in collaboration with IRR Legal, details evidence and arguments for the proposition that cutting VAT and BEE premiums from public procurement will save South African consumers R100 billion, to the benefit of poor people especially.

IRR Legal Executive Director Gabriel Crouse will discuss details of the proposal with IRR Projects and Publications Manager Terence Corrigan in a webinar next Wednesday.

The paper says that cutting VAT and BEE premiums

• will stimulate economic and jobs growth;
• is the most popular choice, and
• will alleviate poverty.

Th 2026 report builds on the 2025 report of the same name. Key new developments are:

• National Treasury’s concession to IRR Legal that value-for-money procurement is constitutionally compliant;
• National Treasury’s admission to IRR Legal that the state currently defines race as “goods and services” in the annual budgeting process for BEE premiums, and
• recent polling by the IRR, and others, indicating the mass popularity of both cutting VAT and cutting BEE premiums.

Event details

Date: Wednesday, 18 February 2026

Time: 10h00

Speakers: Gabriel Crouse, IRR Legal Executive Director

Terence Corrigan, IRR Projects and Publications Manager

Media contact: Gabriel Crouse, IRR Legal Executive Director Tel: 082 510 0360 Email: gabriel@irrlegal.org.za 

Media enquiries: Michael Morris Tel: 066 302 1968 Email: michael@irr.org.za