Najib says Malaysians have to prepare to pay more new taxes

KUALA LUMPUR (Aug 17): Malaysians will now have to prepare to pay various new taxes to be imposed by the PH government due to the abolition of goods and services tax (GST), former Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak (pictured) said.

In a Facebook post, he said Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng should lodge a police report over the so-called "robbery" of GST refunds instead of hiding behind Parliamentary immunity.

Najib also claimed that the government stands to lose about RM31 billion this year alone, due to the abolition of the GST in June and the tax holiday before the implementation of the sales and services tax (SST) in September.

"I want to state that due to the tax exemption for three months, the loss of revenue is at least RM15 billion. There is also an additional RM8 billion loss for the months of September and December this year.

"By prematurely stopping the GST, the new government can be exposed to RM8 billion worth of input tax claims for the month of April and May where the government must pay to traders who have the right to claim back the tax. This amounted to RM31 billion for this year alone and the amount could even go higher," he added.

This because consumers would have purchased luxury goods like cars and other expensive things during the tax holiday period, he said.

"Also, the abolition of GST and its enforcement system also provides room for tax dodgers and lower corporate tax declaration as what happened under the previous SST system.

"These are the real reasons why many promises in Harapan's manifesto cannot be fulfilled and why aid to the lower-income group will be slashed and there will be no pay rise for civil servants." — theedgemarkets.com

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