Guan Eng makes 11th-hour appeal for Anwar to ensure ‘last budget’ counts

 

Bagan MP Lim Guan Eng has made a last-minute appeal to Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim to deliver meaningful tax relief in Budget 2027, calling it the government’s final opportunity for voters to feel its benefits before the next general election.

The former finance minister’s appeal comes ahead of Anwar tabling Budget 2027 in the Dewan Rakyat tomorrow.

“To be very frank, this is the last budget we can make to make the people feel the budget,” Lim told Malaysiakini in Parliament today.

In a Facebook post yesterday, Anwar said economic growth alone was insufficient while people continued to face cost-of-living pressures, pledging that Budget 2027 would ease their burdens and ensure development benefits were felt more equitably.

Lim said that while Anwar would still table Budget 2028, there would be insufficient time for its measures to take effect before the next general election.

“Anwar will be delivering the Budget 2028, but he won’t have enough time for the people to feel the benefit because it will be elections by the time.

“So this is the final budget. Either you make it, or you don’t,” he stressed.

The current Parliament first sat on Dec 19, 2022, and its five-year term ends in December 2027.

A general election must be held within 60 days of Parliament being dissolved, meaning voters must go to the polls by February 2028 unless an election is called earlier.

The federal budget is tabled annually in the Dewan Rakyat, usually during Parliament’s third and final meeting of the year, which typically begins in October.

Tax relief

Lim also urged Anwar to raise personal income tax relief from RM9,000 to RM12,000, increase education and healthcare tax relief by RM1,000 each, and remove the eight percent service tax imposed on private old folks’ homes.

“What we can do to make the people feel the benefit of the budget is to increase the personal tax relief from the current RM9,000 to RM12,000.

“It has not been increased since 2010, 17 years already. Time has come for it to be increased by RM3,000 based on inflation over the last 17 years,” he said.

He also called for tax relief for those caring for elderly parents by scrapping the service tax, which he said had been imposed on private old folks’ homes since September.

Lim said the proposals had already been conveyed to Anwar, but he was making a “last-ditch effort” to secure assistance for individual taxpayers after focusing on businesses yesterday. - Mkini