Datuk Ahmad Maslan was reported to challenge the opposition to present their alternatives to the goods and services tax (GST), the new consumption tax currently being implemented.
The Deputy Finance Minister said: “If the GST implementation is rejected, I want to know what are the alternatives which the opposition can present to cushion the people's hardship and at the same time develop the country."
He also said that the protest towards GST by the opposition is improper and will be troublesome to the people because GST reduces tax to 6% compared to 10% in the sales and service tax (SST) previously.
I am not a member of the opposition. But as a citizen, I think Maslan is talking baloney.
It is simple, if 6% GST is lower than 10% SST, why are the people paying more taxes now? Please don’t misrepresent, Maslan. Has he looked at the coverage of GST when compared with SST? Has he looked the pitfalls of GST implementation which may include a product or a service being taxed at different stages before the final price is determined? If that happens, are the consumers actually being taxed more than 6%?
With regard to his challenge for alternatives, sometimes I wonder it is worthwhile responding to him. But for the sake of enlightening our people, I don’t mind doing it again and again.
First, and this is fundamental, why should we the people pay more taxes even if we can afford it? This is not an issue of loyalty or our unwillingness to share the burden of development. What is the point of government collecting taxes when it has aberrantly ended up with more scandals and squanders? Surely money in the pockets of citizens will be better managed and more productively spent than money in government’s coffer. In fact, we want the government to do less, not more. Let the people spend their own money to generate growth and development in this country. At least spending by the people is less distortionary.
How convenient it is for him to say that the government needs money for development. First he has to tell us what constitutes “real” development that benefits the people. Second, he has to tell us how much of government’s allocation is for real development and how much is for luxurious projects which have very little to do with the livelihood of the people.
Was buying an additional executive jet a national development project? Was money spent on NFC lead to development of cattle industry in this country? How did putting money in Caymans help Malaysia’s development? What about millions spent on numerous consultants and the blueprints they produced? Since the advent of KPI, ETP, GTP, NKRA, Blueprints and whatever, what significant results have we discerned in recent time? If you ask me, I only know the outputs were colourful glossy papers and charts which no one even reads despite the millions spent on them.
We talk about GST as if government’s coffer would run dry without it. Let me ask Maslan a simple question – did anyone of us ever envisage Malaysia could get so much of oil related revenue in recent time? Oil revenue was god’s gift to Malaysia which we could have used for real development for the next 50 years if it was wisely and prudently spent. But what have we done with the money? We grew our expenditures, many of which unnecessary and extravagant, to match with the windfall.
Now the government wants GST to fill the gap because oil related revenue is expected to taper off. But have I not just told you that we love to grow our expenditures to match with whatever revenues we could lay our hand on? So how can we ever solve our financing problem when in no time the government will find sufficient number of “projects” and “programmes” to make full use of GST revenue?
Spendthrift government must never be allowed more revenue. It means more waste and more burdens on the people. Since you want alternatives, here is one: government, please do less and spend less and it will not hurt us. Please don’t think too highly of yourself.
I am not a member of the opposition. But as a citizen, I think Maslan is talking baloney.
It is simple, if 6% GST is lower than 10% SST, why are the people paying more taxes now? Please don’t misrepresent, Maslan. Has he looked at the coverage of GST when compared with SST? Has he looked the pitfalls of GST implementation which may include a product or a service being taxed at different stages before the final price is determined? If that happens, are the consumers actually being taxed more than 6%?
With regard to his challenge for alternatives, sometimes I wonder it is worthwhile responding to him. But for the sake of enlightening our people, I don’t mind doing it again and again.
First, and this is fundamental, why should we the people pay more taxes even if we can afford it? This is not an issue of loyalty or our unwillingness to share the burden of development. What is the point of government collecting taxes when it has aberrantly ended up with more scandals and squanders? Surely money in the pockets of citizens will be better managed and more productively spent than money in government’s coffer. In fact, we want the government to do less, not more. Let the people spend their own money to generate growth and development in this country. At least spending by the people is less distortionary.
How convenient it is for him to say that the government needs money for development. First he has to tell us what constitutes “real” development that benefits the people. Second, he has to tell us how much of government’s allocation is for real development and how much is for luxurious projects which have very little to do with the livelihood of the people.
Was buying an additional executive jet a national development project? Was money spent on NFC lead to development of cattle industry in this country? How did putting money in Caymans help Malaysia’s development? What about millions spent on numerous consultants and the blueprints they produced? Since the advent of KPI, ETP, GTP, NKRA, Blueprints and whatever, what significant results have we discerned in recent time? If you ask me, I only know the outputs were colourful glossy papers and charts which no one even reads despite the millions spent on them.
We talk about GST as if government’s coffer would run dry without it. Let me ask Maslan a simple question – did anyone of us ever envisage Malaysia could get so much of oil related revenue in recent time? Oil revenue was god’s gift to Malaysia which we could have used for real development for the next 50 years if it was wisely and prudently spent. But what have we done with the money? We grew our expenditures, many of which unnecessary and extravagant, to match with the windfall.
Now the government wants GST to fill the gap because oil related revenue is expected to taper off. But have I not just told you that we love to grow our expenditures to match with whatever revenues we could lay our hand on? So how can we ever solve our financing problem when in no time the government will find sufficient number of “projects” and “programmes” to make full use of GST revenue?
Spendthrift government must never be allowed more revenue. It means more waste and more burdens on the people. Since you want alternatives, here is one: government, please do less and spend less and it will not hurt us. Please don’t think too highly of yourself.
* TK Chua reads The Malaysian Insider.
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