SHAH ALAM, 12 Dec: The Central Government’s proposal to amend the Income Tax Act 1967 would increase the people’s burden since the tax will be imposed on the withdrawal of savings from Private Pension Schemes before age 55.
The Assemblyman for Sri Muda, Shuhaimi Shafiei, said that the move should be objected with worker’s unions standing up to state their stand on the matter.
He said that this should not be left to happen because it would detrimentally impact workers who have been saving in such schemes.
“Worker’s unions should rise up to oppose the proposal for the bill to be amended. It has been found that many laws and bills that were amended took the easy way for the government to collect more money to balance the country’s deficit.
“This is not a healthy thing because it continues to oppress and burden the people,” he told Selangor Kini.
Shuhaimi, who is also the Selangor PKR Information Chief, said that the move to impose a tax on employees in the private sector who withdraws their savings from the scheme can be likened to the government obtaining the people’s money by ‘officially robbing’ through amendments to the bill.
He said that the plan is clearly a betrayal to the people as a whole.
“The move by the Central Government is unfortunate to employees. We urge employees to rise up because if it is taken to parliament and we do not get to oppose it, they will continue it with the total majority that they have,” he said.
Prior to this, the PKR Strategy Director, Rafizi Ramli, said that the proposal made by the government is definitely opposed by Pakatan Rakyat because it is seen as an immoral thing that adds to the people’s burden.
The BN Government tabled the proposal to amend the Income Tax Act 1967 to enable full taxation on every withdrawal made from Private Pension Schemes before reaching 55 years of age.