KUALA LUMPUR, 13 Oct: The Member of Parliament for Pandan, Rafizi Ramli, said that the statement by the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak, a few days ago that the introduction of the Capital Gains Tax (CGT) will drop the country’s capital and share market is irresponsible.
The move is seen as an attempt by him to confuse the people with hopes that a majority of them do not understand taxes and will easily believe him.
He said that the CGT which only targets the rich is more moral and fair compared to the GST which taxes all people.
Based on the statistics of financial asset ownership which was revealed by Muhamad Abudl Khalid in his book “The Colour of Inequality: Ethnicity, Class, Income and Wealth in Malaysia”, it shows that only a small number of people are able to own financial assets.
“More that 52 percent of Malaysians do not have financial assets. 10 percent of the richest people control 77 percent of the overall financial asset in this country.
“80 percent of low-income Malaysians only own 5.5 percent of financial assets,” he said at the Parliament lobby today.
He said that among the countries that implement the GST are the United Stated, United Kingdom, Germany and Japan; however it does not witness the crash of the capital market in these countries, and in fact is part of the income contributors.
In relation to that, he said that with the implementation of the GST which is expected to collect RM3 billion in taxes in the first year, it is estimated that around 10 to 15 percent of Malaysians will shoulder the tax.
NS