Prime minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim has reiterated that Malaysia will not reinstate the goods and services tax (GST) or any other broad-based consumption tax, at least not in the near future. Having stated last month that there were no plans to bring it back, he said that the country was not ready for the reintroduction of GST, the New Straits Times reports.
“I have previously stressed that in terms of the efficiency and a transparent taxation system, we are not ready for another implementation of GST. The people’s income is still very low. Hence, we will not be able to reinstate GST in the coming six to 12 months,” he said.
Speaking during the minister’s question time in Dewan Rakyat yesterday, he said that the rakyat‘s income must first be increased and at a reasonable level for GST to be reinstated. He said that while countries like Singapore, Canada and New Zealand used that taxation systems, Malaysia was still far behind in terms of meeting the minimum income for GST to be reintroduced.
“Their people have the minimum income for the GST (and) if we compare, we have about 130,000 hardcore poor and poor income families from the B40 categories. Hence, this cannot be done now,” he said in reply to a supplementary question from Datuk Dr Zulkafperi Hanapi (PN-Tanjong Karang), who asked if the government had plans to reinstate GST.
“The capital gains tax and luxury goods tax that we recently introduced is more than enough for the country to gain extra income, aside from strict enforcement on tax evasion,” he said.
Talk of Malaysia reintroducing GST surfaced last year when previous prime minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob suggested it in an exclusive interview with Nikkei. “We lost RM20 billion in annual revenue when we abolished the GST and replaced it with the old SST. No other country in the world has reverted back from GST to SST, except for Malaysia,” he told the publication at the time.
The GST replaced the sales and service tax (SST) in April 2015, but was then scrapped in favour of bringing back SST in September 2018 when the Pakatan Harapan government took over the reins. We’ve covered the impact of GST on the automotive industry and car prices in the past, which is worth a read to understand the mechanics of both taxation systems.
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more than 50% of Malaysian doesn’t ready for anything that did not benefit themselves
Anwar menang rakyat senang
Bang non sez not ready means this year, he will introduce it next year. U gotta see what he sez between the lines.
Isn’t it better to increase the value of the Ringgit?
Increasing income of the people indirectly translate to increasing inflation where prices of everything goes up.
It’s an ugly fact that whenever the gomen increase the basic salary, the prices of everything shoots up as well. The businesses will not only divert the additional cost to the consumers but mark up additional profit margins for themselves.
What goes around, comes around… this only makes things worst.
The gomen keeps on increasing the basic salary but how about those of us who have worked years to build up our salary but suddenly with the basic salary increased.
Our previous efforts just goes down the drain.
Imagine you started work in 2015 with a basic salary of 800.
After 7 years of hard labour, your basic salary is 1500
Suddenly because of gomen new mentality and raised the basic salary to RM1500.
Your 7 years of hard work and increments means nothing.
ya by the gomen of pn, ismail bera. do because of populist, not use the brain.
earning more is individual ability … value of ringgit (fat hope) .. what’s going on in Malaysia that can increase ringgit value.. nothing.. with your productivity ?
Agreed. Keep on raising the salary won’t solve anything, but only worsen the inflation.
The best solution is still increase the value of ringgit, at least back to 1 USD = 3.X MYR then we can talk. Right now Ringgit is so weak that anything imported is absurd in pricing.
Plz introduce GST at 3%. Gradually increase 1% after 3years depend on economy condition. Gst is a fair tax structure tht tax every1. Even foreigner who purchase things can be taxed. The higher the price the higher the tax. Rich ppl will pay more tax. It’s transparent. u buy u pay gst. Thats all. simple. Just make sure the gst tax refund is fast, so tht business can continue efficiently. With a good tax system, u can implement tourist tax rebate, non-tax item, etc. Gment also gain more revenue. is a win-win. tq.
then you dont understand enough or pretendly dont understand. if gst at 3%, better sst at 10%. not win-win for gomen.
U dont understand that sst many can avoid paying unlike gst. 3% pf gst tax from 100% businesses is better than 10% of sst
If 0.5% GST then okay, if 6% GST is too expensive
i dont know if you realize or not, 10% sst is better than 0.5% gst for gomen. i want low gst too, but please la berpijak di bumi yang nyata. you want gomen to give bantuan and everything, especially b40, but how to give if revenue decrease. and if gst started, all b40 also have to pay tax eventhough they dont qualified to pay income tax.
Malaysians are also not ready for targeted fuel subsidy and too many aids given to B40. Likewise, our politicians are not ready to give up corruption and nepotism.
Citizen always talk for own benefit rather for the country as a whole
without GST… Malaysian still paying tax… SST also tax what…?
Time for you to study what is GST and SST before u comment here
Paultan’s version of SST calculation is wrong. Base could be different between companies and no such thing as Gov approved selling price. It is a free market.
not true when it comes to imported cars the selling price had to first be approved by government (Miti)
correct me if wrong
GST = Gomen Sikit2 Take
Maybe if can, reduce non National car prices. Or allow more companies to create national cars.
Malaysia was ready and implemented in 2005-2018 but because of your toxic politic, it was shredded by your alliance. You were fooling the people and now biting the consequences of not having enough revenue to sustain the country’s fiscal. Had we continued with GST, we would not need to depend on hydrocarbon profit. Think wisely and act bravely for this country’s future.
Najib idea was great. but the implementation was wrong. instead of 6% tax, they markup 6% of the goods. Only fast foods operator did the correct GST charged
implementation during najib was bad , 10s of billions which were suppose to be refunded was held stuck by government