South Africa's black economic empowerment rules have long been a thicket of ownership deals, scorecards and points. Entrepreneur Alan Knott-Craig wants to collapse the whole thing into a single number. His pitch: pay a 3% levy on gross revenue to the taxman, and receive an automatic Level 3 empowerment certificate, the highest rung a company can reach without changing who owns it.
The 343 idea
Knott-Craig calls it “343”, 3% of revenue for a Level 3 score. It would be voluntary, open only to companies not listed on the JSE, and pitched as an alternative to the existing scorecard rather than a replacement. Pay it regularly, he says, and there are no other empowerment requirements to meet. He is adamant it isn't a tax: “The 3% levy is not a tax. Taxes are mandatory. This is voluntary.” The Kululeko Institute behind the idea made a formal submission to the trade department dated 4 March 2026.
Why revenue, not profit
The choice of revenue as the base is deliberate. “Profit can be reduced through accounting choices,” Knott-Craig argues, while revenue is harder to massage, and the taxman already tracks it for VAT. The maths leans on scale: formal business revenue in South Africa was about R12.7 trillion in 2022, so taxing a slice of the non-listed, non-compliant portion is how backers reckon the levy could raise about R40bn a year, or R120bn over three years. The money, he says, is meant to hand preferential capital, skills and market access to aspiring entrepreneurs in townships.
Former Reserve Bank deputy governor Kuben Naidoo has thrown his weight behind the concept and floated his own, gentler version: a 5% surcharge on company tax, so a firm assessed to pay R100 would pay R105, raising roughly R5bn a year. Either way, the pitch is the same trade, a clear price in exchange for far less red tape.
There is the rub. Knott-Craig insists the 3% is a voluntary levy, but the coverage is already calling it a “new BEE tax”. With the proposal now in official hands, the real question isn't whether empowerment gets funded, but who gets to set the price.
