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Tax Brackets

MBS Attendance calculates PAYE using the tax brackets published annually by SARS. The 2026/27 brackets are pre-loaded. You need to update these each tax year after the South African budget announcement in February.

Viewing brackets

Go to MBS Attendance → Tax Brackets. Select a tax year from the dropdown to view the brackets for that year. The table shows each bracket's minimum income, lump sum and rate.

Updating each year

After SARS publishes new brackets (typically February/March each year):

On the Tax Brackets page, enter the new year number in the Create New Year field and click Copy & Create. This copies the current year's brackets as a starting point.

Select the newly created year from the dropdown.

Update each bracket row with the new values from the SARS tables. Update the lump sum and rate for each bracket.

Update the age thresholds table below with the new tax-free threshold amounts.

Click Save Tax Brackets.

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Update before generating March payslips

The South African tax year runs March to February. Update your brackets before generating payslips for March each year. Payslips already generated are not retroactively changed.

Age thresholds

Below the brackets table is the age thresholds table. This defines the minimum annual income below which no PAYE is charged, by age group:

Under 65 — R95,750 for 2026/27
Age 65 to 74 — R141,250 for 2026/27
Age 75 and older — R157,900 for 2026/27

These thresholds are checked before the bracket table. If an employee's estimated annual income is below their age group threshold, PAYE is zero regardless of which bracket their income falls in.

How brackets are applied

PAYE is calculated per payslip by annualising the monthly gross pay and finding the applicable bracket. The formula is:

Annual estimate   = monthly gross × 12
Bracket           = highest bracket where min_income ≤ annual estimate
Annual PAYE       = lump_sum + ((annual estimate - min_income) × rate ÷ 100)
Monthly PAYE      = annual PAYE ÷ 12

Only the income above the bracket floor is taxed at the bracket rate. The lump sum covers all tax owed on income below that floor. See How PAYE works for a worked example.