KUALA LUMPUR, 14 Oct: Opposition Leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim cynically replied the Member of Parliament for Ketereh, Tan Sri Annuar Musa, by asking if the goods and services tax (GST) which will be implemented by the government on April 1, 2015, is an ‘experience from ketereh’?
The brief reaction by the Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) de facto leader was after Annuar Musa opposed Pakatan Rakyat’s (PR) suggestion to introduce the capital gains tax (CGT) because the idea was following the model used by the United Kingdom (UK).
“He did not react through facts from outside understanding, foreign and so on. Is the GST experience from his village? Ketereh?
“He has to understand that I commented based on facts, not shouting and cussing. That is his way,” he said when met at the Parliament lobby today.
Annuar during the House of Representatives debate yesterday said that PR’s suggestion to implement the CGT shows Anwar’s inconsistent attitude in defending his argument.
This is because in 1993, Anwar said in the House of Representatives that he rejected the value added tax (VAT); a tax system used by western countries when he was the Finance Minister.
Prior to this, Anwar debated the Budget 2015 as the Opposition Leader and stressed that the CGT is more effective because it is imposed on a small group of Malaysians that gain profit from transactions involving capital such as shares, financial instruments and bonds.
Although the number of people who will be taxed the CGT is far less compared to the GST, however PR estimated that the introduction of the tax can collect the initial tax in 2015, involving RM3 billion.
NS
