Pakatan: GST a 'lazy' way to increase revenue
Implementing the goods and services tax (GST) will be a "lazy" way to increase government revenue, says Pakatan Rakyat.
The GST, if announced in the federal budget tomorrow, would be "addictive" and the government would never reduce it once it introduced, PKR vice-president Nurul Izzah Anwar said today.
Implementing the goods and services tax (GST) will be a "lazy" way to increase government revenue, says Pakatan Rakyat.
The GST, if announced in the federal budget tomorrow, would be "addictive" and the government would never reduce it once it introduced, PKR vice-president Nurul Izzah Anwar said today.
Nurul said this when officially launching the Pakatan Rakyat's shadow budget in the Parliament building today.
She said that the BN government has no “moral right” to introduce the consumption tax, and urged the government to do the “difficult thing” by plugging leakages and wastages in its administration.
Meanwhile, her PKR colleague Wong Chen said increasing the number of taxpayers would be enough to raise revenue for the government.
"We believe many people are evading income tax because they are not happy with the way the government is spending the money," Wong said at a press conference after the launch.
PAS’ Shah Alam MP Khalid Samad, who was also at the press conference, said that government appears to be “ignoring” the realities of cost of living for Malaysian grassroots.
“This is a denial syndrome. We in Pakatan Rakyat realise that the cost of living is a problem that needs to be overcome,” he said.
Pakatan said that its budget could provide about RM10 billion to RM20 billion in savings from government expenditure annually, contrasting it which BN’s budget, which it said wastes about RM20 billion to RM30 billion a year.
The Pakatan budget would have a 3.2 percent deficit, and has a 5.2 percent economic growth forecast.
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