https://www.sars.gov.za/tax-rates/income-tax/rates-of-tax-for-individuals/

Hey.

I'm pretty used to reading the Tax tables, I thought I understood them pretty well since on the face of it they are pretty straightforward. For each income range, it lists your tax rate for income within that range, plus the accumulation of the tax rates from the previous ranges. So for example if you fall within the 26% income bracket

38 916 26% of taxable income above 216 200

that 38916 is actually the total 18% from the first bracket, then you calculate 26% on the amount of income above the first bracket. Likewise the 70532 in the 3rd range is the total 18% for the first bracket plus the 26% for the 2nd.

But now while trying to replicate Tax tables calculation in a spreadsheet, I realise that the table actually doesn't take into account the tax threshold that differs per age. I checked this against a couple of online calculators and the math seems to work that way. For example under 65s don't pay tax on their first R87300, so for the 26% bracket for a under 65 it should actually be

23 202 26% of taxable income above 216 200

I presume they list the table this way simply to avoid printing 3 sets of tables for each age group (although the only difference would be that accumulated amount, so they could just have 3 separate columns for it, or even just a footnote to deduct such and such amount for each age group since it would be the same fixed difference at any bracket...). But by not taking the threshold into account that amount on the tables are actually wrong for everybody.

Is my understanding of the calculation correct?