If you buy a book or medicines after April 1, you’re going to be hit with the Goods and Services Tax. But if you buy a lobster (and who doesn’t, at least three times a week?), that purchase will be exempt from the GST.
What gives?
That’s what Lembah Pantai MP and PKR vice-president Nurul Izzah Anwar wanted to know in Parliament today.
Speaking to reporters in the Parliament lobby, Anwar Ibrahim’s daughter repeated the Pakatan Rakyat’s call for scheduled medicines and books to be exempted from the impending GST, saying that the current list of exempted items would benifit only the BN’s “crony class”.
“Lobsters are exempted, but medicines and books are taxed… who eats lobsters everyday? I know the people in my constituency don’t,” she said.
“Ordinary Malaysians are being asked to pay directly or indirectly, for these projects through the regressive GST and abolition of subsidies to fill the Treasury’s deficit-ridden coffers.”
She also noted that patients at private healthcare clinics and hospitals would have to pay the GST on items such as crutches, wheelchairs and prosthetic limbs. Medicines for the treatment of cancer, kidney-related illnesses and HIV are also not exempted from the GST.
According to Pathma Subramaniam’s report in The Malay Mail Online, The Association of Private Hospitals of Malaysia (APHM) estimated that helthcare costs will rise by about four to five per cent after the GST is implemented next April, as the tax will be imposed on medical supplies.
Nurul Izzah added that the International Publisher Association (IPA) notes 47 out of the 51 countries worlwide implementing the GST taxation system have introduced special discounts for the purchase of books, or have exempted books from the GST altogether.
“They are making lobsters exempt from GST because the government has a National Key Economic Area (NKEA) project harvesting lobsters in Sabah.
“So for me, there is a disconnect between what ordinary Malaysians are facing once the tax regime is in place versus what their vested interests are involved with,” she said.
