if you sell as an investment property then you pay 50% tax on your profits if you sell in the 1st 12 mths but only 17% tax if you sell after 12 mths.
In SA, CGT applies to 100% of profits if sold within first 12 months, 50% if sold after that.
This isn't the same as paying 50% tax on your profits as bingoshelley has written, not sure if its just your wording comeing across wrong but anyway you pay tax on 50% of the profit at your nominal tax rate. Not the same thing.
If profit was 200,000, just an example, easy number to work with, then I would pay tax on 100,000 at 47.1 c per dollar at the most, but if I earned less than $75,000 income tax I would only pay 30c in dollar, ie 30,000 total out of the 200,000 profit and only 15c in dollar if my income tax was less than 30,000. Profit is also split 50/50 if property was owned in joint names so one partner may pay 47.1c in dollar while other pays nothing. (if one earned over 150,000 and other earned less than $6000, say a SAHM), obviously this brings the total tax paid down.