MInister Hassan Malek says people understand GST better now. Hurrah!

Minister Hassan Malek stated that people understand GST better now. How he comes to this conclusion, we don’t know. Maybe Hassan Malek is a clairvoyant or he has employed the Bomoh King. On the other hand, we know Hassan Malek has a penchant for saying things according to his limited understanding.

He is also hinting that the actual date for GST implementation has not been decided yet because it depends on when the Finance minister says so. It will depend on the readiness of the people and the economy to accept it he says as reported by the NST. Otherwise it will be implemented on 1^st April next year. In just a few passages, Hassan Malek has revealed the confused thinking of the government as regards GST. Or is Hassan Malek the only one confused? Or is NST making fun of Hassan Malek?

How on earth can Hassan Malek infer that people understand what GST is all about? The people trading in pasar malam are cursing at GST saying it is just another money extracting scheme by the spendthrift BN government. The Chinese wholesalers in Pasar Borong Selayang keep asking and making fun of GST- apa itu GST? Gua tak kira lor.

They couldn’t care less. Walking around the Pasar Minggu on Sunday morning in Raub and asking why has the price of sea fish has gone up- the fishmongers readily volunteer attributing it to the decision of the agriculture minister deploying deep sea fishing vessels to look for the missing MH370. Asked about GST- they say who cares. All we care and are concern with are the rising cost of sales and the price of our products. People will spend less.

People get less money- the government is getting more money. People cannot tax others- government can increase income by employing a new tax system. The GST is a disease/penyakit. How do you ask people to support a penyakit? How do you want people to support a bad policy?

Let us see whether the more than 300 facilitators employed by the MOF will be able to enlighten the people about taxing at each phase of the supply chain. Maybe the government thinks it is speaking to an audience made up of accountants and other numerate people. Maybe the government thinks it is speaking to educated audience all over.

We know how UMNO will approach this GST issue. They will say 160 countries in the world are using GST. They will not say the most powerful economy in the world, USA is not using GST. They will not say the real reason why GST is used by these 160 countries is that each one of those countries needs more money. Malaysia wants to use GST to extract more money.

We must object to increased taxation because the idea of taxation is not to give money to government to run its business. The idea of taxation is to redistribute income not fund government operations.

Knowing UMNO they will factor in racial issues as one reason for employing GST and why it must be supported by the people especially Malays. They will say GST is a taxing regime to make sure tax evasion and tax dodging are limited. Those escaping and evading taxes are the Chinese and with GST, these people can’t escape. So Malays must support GST because the Chinese have evaded paying taxes to the UMNO government.

The UMNO apparatchiks will go around town repeating this story. The reason why this government lacked money is because many people are evading paying tax and so we must catch them.

It’s impossible to contain prices. Business transactions from one supply chainer to the other are done mostly on credit. When credit is involved there is an element of risk. Furthermore there are cash flow issues involved. Supply chainers pay upfront without waiting for reimbursements from the government. The government says, claims will be sorted out within 14 days. That is what they say.

Do you think , any businessman having to accommodate time-risk and credit risk will not put some artificial costing on these risks? They will raise the price and probably even incorporate a portion or all of the GST taxes on the goods which they sell.

Unless of course the government implements the anti-profiteering act and converts the whole economy under a price control regime.