Under Najib, Muslims getting out of hand, says ex-minister

Datuk Zaid Ibrahim says the Federal Territories mufti's recent comments on the GST shows that Muslims have lost 'all sense of fairness', thinking only of themselves and yet call themselves 'good Muslims'. – The Malaysian Insider pic, April 21, 2015.Former law minister Datuk Zaid Ibrahim has described Muslims in Malaysia as getting “far out of hand” under the administration of Datuk Seri Najib Razak.

Commenting on the Federal Territories mufti’s suggestion that Muslims be exempt from the goods and services tax (GST) because they are already paying zakat, Zaid, in his blog posting said, Muslims had lost all sense of fairness.

“Muslims have lost the capacity to discern even the slightest idea of fairness. The idea that the burden of taxation should be shared equally by all citizens for the benefit of all citizens is not acceptable to them,” wrote Zaid.

“When making policy proposals, they no longer think about the interests of their fellow-Malaysians. Instead, they think only of themselves and yet they call themselves 'good Muslims' – and it has been under the current administration of Datuk Seri Najib Razak that things have gone so far out of hand.”

Mufti Datuk Zulkifli Mohamad had said that Muslims who already paid the zakat should not be imposed with the GST, or a special mechanism should be set so that they would not have to pay twice “until it burdens them”.

But Zaid noted that the mufti had failed to mention that Muslims who paid zakat could offset the amount paid from their income tax bills, so they actually paid less income tax.

In contrast, non-Muslims who donated to their own temples or churches could not make the same deductions from their income tax, he said.

“Furthermore, the mufti did not tell you that the amount paid by Muslims as zakat can only be used for the benefit of other Muslims, whereas money collected from state taxes, such as income tax, is used by the government for the benefit of everyone,” said Zaid.

He warned that the mufti’s proposal could lead to calls for Muslims to be exempt from income and corporate taxes, as no such tax existed in Islamic history.

“Non-Muslims will be left to pay these taxes because they are dhimmis (people who live under the grace of a Muslim Ruler), and that’s the price to pay when you live as a non-Muslim in a Muslim state.

“This is how far the policy of Islamisation has brought us as a people,” wrote Zaid.

Yesterday, the National Fatwa Committee said the mufti’s suggestion was a personal view and should not be mistaken as a fatwa.

The committee’s chairman, Tan Sri Dr Abd Shukor Husin said the GST was “harus” (advisable/neither forbidden nor recommended) as long as the government was committed towards upholding Islamic teachings, and the tax collected was used for the country’s development.

- TMI