Confident that people will thank the government later for the goods and services tax (GST), BN MP Nur Jazlan Mohammad said today that they can simply vote the government out later if they are not for it.

The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) chairperson said this to a packed room as PKR strategy director Rafizi Ramli tore away at the tax, which the opposition said were the government's way to make up for a shortfall in income after over 16 years of overspending.

"I can't win," Nur Jazlan ( left ), who is tasked to watch government spending closely, said with a smile.

"Let GST help make Rafizi the new finance minister. There is no need to demo (have street protests), let GST through and let the government fall after that. You can change the government every five years," he added.

Nur Jazlan was the only government rep among four speakers at the Sinar Harian forum entitled 'GST: Who wins and who loses?'

Rafizi ( right ) argued that everybody would lose as after the GST, some nine million businesses would be transformed into tax collectors, making up for a job which the Internal Revenue Board (IRB) was now unable or unwilling to do.

He questioned why the government does not explore other ways to levy more tax on the rich first before springing the consumption tax on 90 percent of Malaysians who now don't earn enough to even pay income tax.

'A superior tax structure'

Nur Jazlan argued instead that GST has nothing to do with good or bad governance, it was simply a superior tax structure for the current state of Malaysia’s economy - which has transformed from agriculture-based to industrial-based and was now consumer-driven.

He agreed with UiTM management and marketing lecturer Faridah Hassan - another forum speaker - that since 160 countries worldwide already have it, Malaysia can’t ignore it either.

Consumer group Fomca vice-president Mohammad Sha'ani Abdullah (left) was the forum’s other speaker.

Mohammad Sha'ani protested that people don’t trust the government about GST because their campaigns assumed people were stupid.

He cited for example that the GST was not the same as Sales and Service Tax (SST) of 6-16 percent, which the government has said will offset GST. Deputy Finance Minister Ahmad Maslan had said this was why prices will fall, not rise after GST.

Holding up a bottle of mineral water, Mohammad Sha'ani showed how this didn’t make sense. He explained that sales tax was collected at the point of manufacturing, hence 30-50 sen for the water, whereas GST was added on at the point of retail, when the same bottle would cost RM1 or more.

Six percent of 30 sen was not the same as six percent of RM1, he added.

In response, Nur Jazlan still thought people were just ignorant.

“You can use the Internet, instead of just looking at X-rated stuff, to study the GST,” Nur Jazlan advised.

“Make a decision based on facts and knowledge.”

In the planning for at least a decade, Parliament has already passed the GST bill in April. It will start at 6 percent on April 1, 2015.

During the question-and-answer session afterwards, someone challenged the PAC chairperson to explain why the same wastage was reported by the Auditor-General’s Reports year after year.

'Fewer businesses can evade taxes'

Nur Jazlan used this as an example why GST was needed as with the computerised collection system that the government will roll out, fewer businesses can evade taxes.

“For now, I give the government a C rating... not A, not B,” Nur Jazlan said to a mostly anti-GST crowd.

“The weakness of the system now is that government departments lack a proper database,” he said, because they were not fully computerised.

He noted how policy continuity were sometimes lost when department directors change position as files also disappeared.

“With GST, no one can evade tax any more...who spends more pays more,” he said.

In retort, Pandan MP Rafizi said that crooks will beat even the best system in the world.

“Tax evasion is moral issue. Whether it is SST or GST, non-compliance is a result of culture that is carried from the top government officials and passed down,” Rafizi said, as the crowd applauded and cheered.

“We need to change the government.”