The Barisan Nasional government is trying to mislead the rakyat by giving the impression that the price of most goods and the taxes paid by the consumer will be reduced after the introduction of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) because it will replace two taxes – the Sales Tax and the Service Tax (SST) – which the consumer is currently paying for.
The truth is that the items taxed under the Sales Tax and the Service Tax is far less than what is taxed under the GST which means that the prices of the majority of goods and services will INCREASE because of the GST even AFTER the removal of the SST.
What the BN has not told the rakyat is that many items are currently exempt under the sales tax. According to the Sales Tax (Rates of Tax No.2) 2012, the number of items which are exempt under the Sales Tax i.e. NOT TAXED runs to 250 pages.[1] In contrast, the number of items which are zero rated under the GST - NOT TAXED at any point of the supply chain – is only 21 pages long.[2]
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Luxury food items such as abalone, lobsters, and oysters will be exempted from the Goods & Services Tax( GST) while common fruits such as oranges will be taxed. The above example is said to be “illogical” and “unfair”, given that the government’s intention for the proposed GST is to only make basic necessities tax free. Customs deputy director GST special unit Wan Leng Whatt explained that such incidents are due to unavoidable “limitations”.
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The increase in the allocation for the Prime Minister's Department for next year is partly to pay the fat salaries of those hired by agencies on a contractual basis, said DAP parliamentarian Ong Kian Ming.
The Serdang MP hit out at the government saying that Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak should "walk the talk" by slashing the expenditure of the Prime Minister's Department and to stop creating new and expensive agencies whose functions overlap with existing government bodies...
"If the prime minister is serious about asking ordinary Malaysians to change their lifestyles to adapt to rising prices as subsidies are withdrawn and the Goods and Services Tax (GST) is introduced, he should also walk the talk by reducing expenditure in his own department," said Ong.
Citing a written reply from the government on Oct 1, Ong said that some of the chief executive officers and directors hired on contract to head these "innovative initiatives" are being paid double or more than the chief secretary, who is the highest ranking civil servant.
"The yearly salary, allowance and the bonus of the Agensi Inovasi Malaysia (AIM) CEO was RM830,500 which works out to approximately a monthly salary of RM69,000.
"The CEO of the Land Transport Commission (SPAD) was paid a yearly salary of RM480,000 (RM40,000 per month), a yearly allowance of RM162,000 and a bonus of RM60,000 totalling to RM622,000.
"The CEO of TalentCorp receives a monthly salary of RM30,000 and a monthly car allowance of RM5,000 which works out to a yearly salary of RM420,000," said Ong.
According to the reply, the maximum salary of the chief secretary was RM23,577.
Ong said the expenditure allocated to the Prime Minister’s Department has increased to 13% from RM14.6 billion this year to a projected RM16.5 billion in 2014.
"And these are only some of the agencies which are under the Prime Minister’s Department," he noted.
Ong said that the chief executives of the the Iskandar Regional Development Authority (IRDA), the East Coast Economic Region Development Council (ECERDC), the Northern Corridor Implementation Authority (NCIA), the Malaysian Industry Government Group for High Technology (Might), the Unit Peneraju Agenda Bumiputera (Teraju) and the Performance Management and Delivery Unit (Pemandu) are also paid equally high salaries.
"Not only are the CEOs of these agencies paid salaries which are higher than their civil servant equivalents, the staff in these agencies, many of whom are contract staff and not government servants, are also paid higher than equivalent salaries," he said.
"For example, a director at Pemandu, which is equivalent to a JUSA A/B civil servant has a maximum salary of RM49,000 a month, an associate director at Pemandu, which is equivalent to a JUSA C civil servant has a maximum salary of RM31,600 a month and the senior manager post which is equivalent to a Grade 54 civil servant has a maximum salary of RM21,000 a month," said Ong.
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