Rethink GST, Dr M tells Putrajaya

Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad at an event at Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang this morning. He says Putrajaya does not understand the GST consumption tax and should therefore rethink its implementation. – The Malaysian Insider pic by Hasnoor Hussain, April 30, 2015.Putrajaya should rethink the implementation of the goods and services tax (GST) because it appears not to understand how the consumption tax worked, said Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad today.

The former prime minister said even the officials in charge of implementing GST were clueless as to how it worked.

"If you ask the officers about this, they cannot answer. So apparently the government also does not understand the impact of the GST on the people," he said.

He said unlike the 1Malaysia Development Berhad scandal which did not impact the man on the street, GST had an impact on every Malaysian.

He said it made Malaysians very angry at Putrajaya.

“When the government introduces something that the government itself doesn't understand how to implement or what the impact is, they need to rethink it,” he said today at the Universiti Sains Malaysia.

This is not the first time that Dr Mahathir had spoken out against the 6% consumption tax which was implemented on April 1.

He had on Saturday suggested that it be scrapped by Putrajaya owing to its unpopularity with the public.

In rebutting him yesterday, Deputy Finance Minister Datuk Ahmad Maslan told Dr Mahathir and those who had criticised GST, to learn about the consumption tax.

"I hope those who advise and report to Dr Mahathir will give him the right picture. Don't give him wrong information," he told reporters at a press conference at the Communication and Multimedia Ministry media centre on Permatang Pauh yesterday.

"'Kesian orang tua tu' (pity the old man)."

Ahmad said that GST had brought tax rates down, such as for individual income and corporate taxes.

The unpopularity of GST will also see the #KitaLawan movement again take to the streets of Kuala Lumpur tomorrow.

The movement's secretariat had said that the consumption tax should open people's eyes to how oppressive the tax was on low wage earners and the jobless.

It said that GST would add to the burden of students, young graduates and retirees.

Past #KitaLawan rallies, on March 7 and 28, were aimed at calling for opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim's release from prison, where he is serving a sentence for sodomy, and for Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak's resignation.

- TMI