‘Pakatan Harapan consistent on cutting GST to zero’

PKR vice-president Nurul Izzah Anwar has clarified that Pakatan Harapan is consistent on its stance on the Goods and Services Tax (GST), by committing to impose zero percent GST if the coalition comes to power.

This comes after a New Straits Times (NST) headline stating that Harapan will not abolish the tax.

“In other words, reducing the GST rate to zero percent will effectively negate the impact of GST when Pakatan Harapan is given the mandate to govern.

“On the other hand, the BN government will continue to tax the rakyat at a repressive six percent. The BN government has forcefully imposed the GST ever since April 2015, as a non-consensual measure for the rakyat to bail out the government,” Nurul Izzah said in a statement today.

On Sunday, the NST had reported that Harapan would maintain the GST if it came into power in the 14th general election, although it would not maintain the current percentage.

It also quoted Nurul Izzah as saying that “zero-rated” GST is “in line with (Pakatan Harapan)’s pledges”.

“In terms of our position, it is similar and we also have to adjust with the mechanism which has been implemented,” she is quoted as saying.

The “zero-rated” approach was also outlined in Harapan’s alternative Budget 2017.

Whilst not mentioning the NST, Nurul Izzah said the BN government is attempting to “deflect attention from their tragic mismanagement of public resources through fake news”.

“Overtaxing the rakyat - especially the B40 group at 6 percent - could have been an avoidable tragedy, should we not have (had) to recoup our losses from 1MDB,” she said.- Mkini