Mr. Lim stated that under GST, everybody will be taxed.[0]<\/small><\/sup><\/a><\/a> It is true that everybody, in a sense that any anybody who consumes a particular taxed good regardless of income levels, will be taxed. But this line of argument presumes that everybody has not already been taxed.<\/p>\n Unfortunately for Mr. Lim, consumers in Malaysia have already been taxed through a consumption tax that is theoretically as flat and as regressive as GST. That tax is the sales and services tax (SST).<\/p>\n Because of the untrue presumption, his argument is irrelevant.<\/p>\n Why is the argument irrelevant?<\/p>\n To evaluate the worth of his argument, a comparison between GST and status quo scenarios has to be made.<\/p>\n Why?<\/p>\n Remember, the proposal is to replace SST with GST. The desirability of one option has to be defined in terms of the desirability of the other and vice versa. In other words, ask the question, “why one option is better than the other?” Absolute statement does not help in decision-making. Relative statement does.<\/p>\n Further, for Mr. Lim’s — and increasingly what is becoming one of Pakatan Rakyat’s as well as others parrot the argument without thinking — argument to be relevant, the status quo must consist of a scenario where not everybody is being taxed. There is no such status quo: the status quo has SST in place.<\/p>\n What is the point of arguing as Mr. Lim has done so when everybody has already been taxed \u2014 in fact, taxed at a higher rate? Remember, the current GST \u00a0is planned to be introduced at 4% while the current SST rate ranges from 5% to 10% and there are goods taxed at even 20%.[1]<\/small><\/sup><\/a><\/a><\/p>\n Both SST which is currently in place, and GST, will affect everybody. If one opposes GST on the basis of how GST affects everybody, then the person has to oppose SST too. Therefore, that person should be indifferent between having GST and SST. One simply cannot make sense if one bases one’s opposition on how GST will affect everybody.<\/p>\n [0]<\/sup><\/a><\/a> \u2014 Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng said with the old sales and services tax system, only some 1.5 million of the total of 12 million workers are taxed but its replacement with the GST will mean everyone, including poor workers, will be affected. [Pakatan bets on GST to muscle BN out<\/em><\/a>. The Malaysian Insider. February 29 2010]<\/small><\/p>\n [1]<\/sup><\/a><\/a> \u2014 See Sales Tax<\/em><\/a>. Accessed December 3 2009.<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Opponents of the introduction of goods and services tax (GST) in Malaysia have raised a number of points. Some of the points are valid even if they are disagreeable. Sometimes, the disagreement is ideological and difference is due to premises originating from separate irreconcilable positions. Those points are fine because at least they are logical […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[1021,541],"class_list":["post-6319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","tag-gst","tag-taxes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6319"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6319\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6326,"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6319\/revisions\/6326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maddruid.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Mohd](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maddruid.com\/Graphics\/reusable\/the__earthinc.png?w=580\")
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