KUALA LUMPUR: Pakatan Rakyat (PR) lawmakers Wong Chen and Rafizi Ramli have today rebuffed Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s claim that PR’s proposed Capital Gains Tax (CGT) will chase investors away or drive money out of the country.

Citing the successful implementation of CGT in several developed countries with major economies like the United Kingdom, Germany, the United States, Australia and Japan, Kelana Jaya MP Wong Chen and Pandan MP Rafizi Ramli told reporters at the Parliament lobby that Najib’s claim was “unfounded” and “silly”.

"You don’t see them running away taking billions or trillions of money out of their countries or take RM800 billion out of their country to hide somewhere," said Wong, adding that the latest US-based Global Financial Integrity (GFI) annual report shows that Malaysia has lost more than US$370 billion to illicit outflows in the 10 years since 2002.

Wong said the CGT is actually targeted at those who profit from buying or selling shares, and will not spark of sudden, destabilising capital outflows unless there were other underlying issues that affect investors’ confidence.

He also dismissed Najib’s claim that CGT will criple the local stock market, explaining instead that it will help curb speculation.

“CGT does not crash stock markets, speculations crash stock markets,” said Wong.

Meanwhile, Rafizi, who is also PKR vice-president, said CGT - which PR has proposed in its alternative Budget for 2015 to replace the soon-to-be-implemented Goods and Services Tax (GST) - would be “morally right” as it targets the rich and not as indiscriminate as the GST, which taxes the rich and poor simultaneously.

He added that the CGT should be able to net tax collections of about RM3 billion a year, “which can double in a good year”, versus the estimated RM8 billion from GST.

The duo demanded that Najib, who also heads the Ministry of Finance (MOF), and currently manages nearly RM66 billion under both the Prime Minister’s Department and the MOF, to relinquish his Finance Minister post as his recent remarks on the CGT showed that he is “overworked” and “out of his depths”.

"PM [the prime minister] is also the Finance Minister. It is time for him to relinquish his post because obviously when he makes unfounded and not argued out statements like this, it shows that he is overworked. He (Najib) is running the country single-handedly, it shows that he should take a break, give up the power, because obviously Najib is out of his depths," said Wong.