How many South Africans pay income tax?

And how much do they contribute? Figures provided by SARS for 2002 - 2007.

Just 5,3 million pay income tax out of a population of 47,9 million.

Or 1 taxpayer supporting 9 people - not including the millions of illegals. Source: SARS

Update:

For the tax year 2005/6 the population was estimated as being 46,888,200 people. Out of this we find that 22,419,800 were either younger than 19 years or older than 65 years. Therefore an approximate labour pool of 24,468,400.

If we express the number of taxpayers, for this period (4,683,821) as a percentage of the approximate labour pool, it amounts to a mere 19.14%. Contrast this to some countries with an inclusion rate of 50-65%.

Now consider the alleged unemployment rate of 25-40%. I don't know how this is calculated, but (once again) this could be grossly under-reported.

Finally, the approximate rate of tax paid is a mere 20.75%. So we are a bunch of low income earners too.

Registered Personal Income Taxpayers in South Africa