The levels of corporate income tax (CIT) collected by the South African Revenue Service (Sars) are only now beginning to recover from the 2008 financial crisis, Sars said on Tuesday.

"If you look at 2008/09, the year before the recession or the year where the recession impacted revenue... CIT was the second-largest contributor during that year," Deon Breytenbach, executive manager for revenue analysis, planning and reporting, said in Pretoria.

He was speaking at the release of the 2014 Tax Statistics Bulletin.

Individuals only contributed R28.9-billion more than CIT to the fiscus in 2008/9, he said.

"The impact of the recession on companies was significant."

The difference in the 2013/14 tax year between personal income tax (PIT) and CIT was R131-billion.

"Many of them [companies] went into assessed loss positions, and they've only started to recover now," Breytenbach said.

In 2008/09, CIT contributed 26.7% of total tax revenue. This shrank to 19.9% by the 2013/14 tax year.

PIT contributed 34.5% to the fiscus in 2013/14, with value added tax contributing 26.4%, and other taxes 19.2%.

The bulletin showed that Gauteng was responsible for over half of all individual taxpayer assessments in 2013.

The country's economic heartland contributed 50.6% (R114.6-billion) of all individual taxpayer assessments.

This was followed by the Western Cape with 14.5% (R32.7-billion), KwaZulu-Natal's 12.9% (R29.2-billion), and Mpumalanga with 5.4% (R12.3-billion).

A total of 27.2% of registered individual taxpayers for the 2013/14 tax year were between the ages of 35 and 44, while of assessed individual taxpayers (AIT), 57% were men and 43% women.

Of the metropolitan municipalities in 2013, Johannesburg had the highest proportion of AITs, at 661,853 (35.8% of Gauteng), with an average annual taxable income of R318 533.

The City of Cape Town was the Western Cape's major individual tax source, accounting for 583 892 AITs (72.9%), with taxed annual average income of R241 704.

KwaZulu-Natal's Ethekwini metro accounted for 376 132 AITs (53.2%), earning an annual average taxable income of R223 092.

In the Eastern Cape, Nelson Mandela Bay had 143 378 AITs (32.6%), with average annual taxable income of R202 459.

In provinces without metros, Mpumalanga's Emalahleni, Govan Mbeki, and Mbombela municipalities together made up almost half of all provincial AITs, at 52 484 (17.4%), 53 554 (17.7%), and 43 920 people (14.5%) respectively.

In terms of annual average taxable income, Govan Mbeki registered R232 741, Emalahleni R257 507, and Mbombela R214 188.

Limpopo's Polokwane municipality had the highest number of AITs in the province, at 45 776 (17.5%), with an average annual taxable income of R228 027.