Malaysians Reject GST, Says Poll

A poll conducted recently had concluded that the majority of Malaysians rejected the implementation of Goods and Services Tax (GST).

Independent pollster, Merdeka Centre on May 2 said that 62 percent of Malaysians surveyed had rejected the GST despite the government's decades-long planning and recent publicity campaign on its benefits, as was reported by Malaysiakini.

The survey of 1,009 registered voters based on the country's ethnic composition, also revealed that one in two did not understand what GST was all about.

An even larger proportion - 64 percent of those surveyed from Apr 12 to Apr 21 - had no clue how the economy worked.

"This view was more prevalent among respondents coming from lower income households, rural areas and among women," the survey released by Merdeka Centre for Opinion Research said.

It noted that as much as 39 percent said they "strongly disagreed" with GST. Some of them were probably at the May 1 rally in Kuala Lumpur, where over 50,000 people thronged Dataran Merdeka and staged a peaceful, albeit short sit-in protest.

Surprisingly, it was not students and the unemployed who dreaded the new tax the most but businesses.

The survey noted that the highest proportion of those who disagreed with GST, 68 percent were self-employed.

This was despite the government spending millions on software to help ease the process of collecting GST.

The survey also revealed that even among civil servants and employees of government-linked corporations, 53 percent also rejected GST. The government had threatened to sack civil servants who took part in last Thursday’s anti-GST rally as it went against the government's aspirations.

The survey interviewed Malays, Chinese and Indian Malaysians over the phone.

It found that Malays had the lowest understanding of GST, with 62 percent - more than the overall 53 percent mark - saying that they didn't really understand the GST.

The reverse was true for Indians, with 65 percent agreeing that they understood the tax, which would start at six percent from April 2015.

A new GST bill was passed in Parliament last month.

Prior to that, the government had first introduced a GST bill in 2009 but subsequently withdrew it a year later due to protests and then spent more years educating the people about the tax.

Msian Digest