The ratio of government grant recipients to taxpayers has risen to 3.75-to-1 (based on National Treasury estimates). The ratio for 2020/21 is over 4-to-1 if provincial and national government employees are excluded or if SARS historical taxpayer figures are used instead (compared to 3.4 based on Treasury estimates for that year).
Footnote
Note that available figures on grants distributed may overstate the number of individual recipients as some recipients may receive more than one grant. It is also possible that government employee figures overstate the number of government employees above the minimum tax threshold. SARS taxpayer numbers are based on assessed tax figures.