Thursday 28 Mar 2024
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KUALA LUMPUR: An opposition politician yesterday questioned the rationale of exempting lobsters from the goods and services tax (GST), when certain medicines and books were not zero-rated.

Lembah Pantai MP Nurul Izzah Anwar said that when GST comes into effect in April, patients of private healthcare requiring medical aids, such as crutches, wheelchairs, artificial limbs and hearing aids, would be hit by GST.

Medicines used for treating cancer, kidney-related illnesses and HIV are also not zero-rated.

“The government is making lobsters exempt from GST because it has a project harvesting lobsters in Sabah.

“So there is a disconnect between what ordinary Malaysians are facing [and] the government’s vested interest,” she said, adding in jest that neither her constituents nor she consumed lobsters on a daily basis.

Nurul Izzah said the government had stated that Malaysia must be a knowledge-based country, yet it was acceptable for Barisan Nasional to tax books, making them more expensive.

She added that multibillion ringgit development projects, such as 1MDB and the Port Klang Free Zone, have sealed the country’s image as a predatory state with a profiteering crony class.

“Ordinary Malaysians are being asked to pay, directly or indirectly, for these projects through the regressive goods and services tax and abolition of subsidies to fill the Treasury’s deficit-ridden coffers,” she said at the Parliament lobby.

Nurul Izzah said she was sure that there would be more surprises in store when one were to read the list of zero-rated and exempted items.

She added that a survey conducted by the International Publisher Association, which looked at value-added GST regimes, found that out of 51 countries surveyed, 47 had special discounts and exemptions for printed books.

The report also said that despite the global economic crisis and the subsequent VAT (valued-added tax)-GST reforms in many countries, books were consistently confirmed to be among the goods that merited a special, reduced VAT-GST rate or exemption.

“So it is sinful for the government to make revenue out of books and health,” Nurul Izzah said.

She called on Putrajaya to defer the implementation of GST until it is able to end losses of government resources, and those involved in corrupt and negligent practices were prosecuted.

She also urged Putrajaya to implement the open-tender system and to put in place measures to raise mean and median wages which are currently at RM2,050 and RM1,500 a month, respectively.

Nurul Izzah said that a more robust poverty index than the cost of basic needs method must be used to define poverty, saying the current index did not reflect the reality of poverty in the country.

“Anything less will lead to the perception that the government is predatory and panders to vested interests, instead of fulfilling its responsibility as caretaker of the public’s well-being.”

Saying that the state was already profiting at the expense of the people, Nurul Izzah added that the GST allows it to shirk its public duties and raise money for non-transparent projects.  — The Malaysian Insider

 

This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on November 26, 2014.

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