Dricus forced to give up 68% of his winnings - R7 MILLION -

Dricus du Plessis is about to give away 68% of his UFC win bonus from his Sunday fight. Almost 7 million rand. This doesn't seem quite fair. As a reward for his dominant win, his estimated to receive between $500,000 and $750,000. On top of that, he earned around $21,000 in UFC promotional guidelines compliance pay, while the Du Plessis-Usman bout was officially awarded Fight of the Night. In a rare move for this specific card, the standard post-fight bonus was doubled to $100,000. He pocketed an extra $100,000 bonus. That's $621,000 on the lower estimates, which is around 10.2 million rand earned. At R10,200,000 annual taxable income (2026/27, under 65): Annual tax: R4,393,149 (after primary rebate). Monthly tax: ≈ R366,096. Effective tax rate: ≈ 43.07%. Monthly take-home: ≈ R483,904. (Assumes no other deductions like RA contributions or medical credits, which would lower this.) If you earned 10.2 million rand in a year, you'd usually pay around 367,000 rand a month in tax. An average tax rate of about 43%. But, Dricus already income sources, which is difficult to get on, but considering he has major sponsorship deals with Mercedes-Benz, Knox energy drinks, Prom Africa, and quite a few more. His income is likely already well above 10 million rand before the fight even happened. Meaning the money you earned during this fight would be taxed at the full 45% tax bracket. That means that he owes SARS 4.59 million rand overall before even spending any of that money. Dricus, the UFC withholds taxes, government happened. That's 3 million rand straight to the US government. The amount, the remaining amount won't be taxed at the full 45% again, because of the double tax treaty. SARS acknowledges that's 30% that's already been paid to the US government, so he doesn't get taxed twice. SARS only collects the remaining 15%. So that's about 1.5 million rand bringing his total taxable, the split overall, 45%: 30% / R3,0 Mil → 🇺🇸 15% / R1,5 Mil → 🇿🇦 government, African after. So, after tax Dricus is left with around 5.6 million. The assumption that we are making is that although usually, company, will tax, actually structure, keeping tax first, expenses after. Now, we still need to deduct his coaching fees, which is usually around 10% of his winnings, so just over a million rand. Management fees, 10% another million rand. And his fight camp expenses, which is 300,000 rand. We can ignore recovery, wellness, all those things. So ultimately, this leaves with 3.28 million take-home pay from a $621,000 pay. Almost 7 million rand before spend. So, after tax, Dricus is left with around 5.6 million. The assumption that we are making is that although usually, company, will tax, actually structure, keeping tax first, expenses after. Now, we still need to deduct his coaching fees, which is usually around 10% of his winnings, so just over a million rand. Management fees, 10% another million rand. And his fight camp expenses, which is 300,000 rand. We can ignore recovery, wellness, all those things. So ultimately, this leaves with 3.28 million take-home pay from a $621,000 pay.