From 1st March 2009 many small businesses with a turnover of less than R1 000 000 per annum can opt to be taxed purely on turnover.

It certainly looks like this could result in a tax saving under the right circumstances. I know it would have meant some pretty big tax savings for me when I started out. Tax of R2 000.00 on a turnover of R300 000.00 - I would have been doing the dance of joy for sure. Unfortunately I don't qualify anymore

You can find the details of the new turnover tax here.

Creating a formula to calculate the breakeven point was beyond me. Maybe someone good at stats manipulation could give it a whirl. I suspect including VAT in that analysis would be a red herring. It's really about the relationship between your turnover and the tax that would attract vs your taxable income and the income tax you'd get hit on that.