Rudyard Kipling"
“When you're left wounded on Afganistan's plains and
the women come out to cut up what remains, Just roll to your rifle
and blow out your brains,
And go to your God like a soldier”
General Douglas MacArthur"
“We are not retreating. We are advancing in another direction.”
“It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it.” “Old soldiers never die; they just fade away.
“The soldier, above all other people, prays for peace, for he must suffer and be the deepest wounds and scars of war.”
“May God have mercy upon my enemies, because I won't .” “The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.
“Nobody ever defended, there is only attack and attack and attack some more.
“It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.
The Soldier stood and faced God
Which must always come to pass
He hoped his shoes were shining
Just as bright as his brass
"Step forward you Soldier,
How shall I deal with you?
Have you always turned the other cheek?
To My Church have you been true?"
"No, Lord, I guess I ain't
Because those of us who carry guns
Can't always be a saint."
I've had to work on Sundays
And at times my talk was tough,
And sometimes I've been violent,
Because the world is awfully rough.
But, I never took a penny
That wasn't mine to keep.
Though I worked a lot of overtime
When the bills got just too steep,
The Soldier squared his shoulders and said
And I never passed a cry for help
Though at times I shook with fear,
And sometimes, God forgive me,
I've wept unmanly tears.
I know I don't deserve a place
Among the people here.
They never wanted me around
Except to calm their fears.
If you've a place for me here,
Lord, It needn't be so grand,
I never expected or had too much,
But if you don't, I'll understand."
There was silence all around the throne
Where the saints had often trod
As the Soldier waited quietly,
For the judgment of his God.
"Step forward now, you Soldier,
You've borne your burden well.
Walk peacefully on Heaven's streets,
You've done your time in Hell."
GST is wrong cure for our economic woes By Liew Chin Tong
Thursday, June 02, 2022
Malaysiakini : If GST was the solution to raise government revenue, it would have
shown the result between 2015 and 2018, yet there was no such evidence.
Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob
𝗪𝗿𝗼𝗻𝗴 𝗰𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘄𝗿𝗼𝗻𝗴 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗯𝗹𝗲𝗺
The
promoters of GST have argued that Malaysia’s tax base is too small and
there are too few Malaysians - only around 16.5 percent - subject to
individual income tax.
Therefore, by implementing GST, the
promoters are hoping to expand the tax base, as everyone needs to pay it
whenever they consume.
But why are so few Malaysians paying
income tax? Admittedly, there is some tax evasion. But, the tax
authorities have enough tools to deal with it.
The bigger problem
here is, that Malaysians are simply too poor to pay income tax. Their
income just does not qualify them to pay income tax.
To
corroborate this, one just has to go back to the thinking behind the
introduction of BR1M in 2012. Under political pressure from Pakatan
Rakyat, Najib and his then deputy Muhyiddin Yassin pushed for this
band-aid idea to give 60 percent of households a bit of money once a
year to help tide them over.
The 1Malaysia People's Aid or BR1M is a recognition that 60 percdent of Malaysian households are not doing well economically.
Juxtaposing
these two facts – that only 16.5 percent of Malaysians pay income tax
and 60 pewrcent of households are deemed poor – it should be evident to
everyone that GST, which taxes consumption at a flat rate, is the wrong
cure for the wrong problem.
GST is regressive and a tax that kills
the golden goose of consumption. The poor and low- and middle-income
families pay more GST as a proportion of their income than their richer
counterparts.
Former prime minister Najib Abdul Razak
What
the Najib administration essentially did was to pay out BR1M to 60
percent of low-income households using the right hand, and then using
the left hand to collect back a larger proportion of their income from
this particular group. That was the GST.
GST and similar
consumption taxes, in general, have been proven to trigger a sharp drop
in consumption after the introduction, at least temporarily.
Pushing the GST amidst high global inflation is madness, to say the least.
𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘀𝗵𝗼𝘂𝗹𝗱 𝗴𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗱𝗼?
There
is no magic formula or a quick fix. The government should restructure
the economic model so that in a decade’s time at least 60 percent of
Malaysian households would earn enough to pay direct income tax.
It means we will have to create jobs that pay better. We will have to develop new sectors that create those jobs.
We
will need to reduce the portion of unskilled labour and go for the
automation and technological upgrade route so that with less labour but
more skilled workers, each worker is paid much higher for their work.
It’s about creating a middle-class society with decent jobs and decent pay.
In
the long run, there are so many more alternatives to GST and
consumption taxes in general. For instance, create a new, higher
marginal tax rate for the top one percent to two percent of earners, so
that they are on a significantly higher marginal rate compared to the
middle class.
Today, the marginal rate on earnings above RM100,000
per year is 21 percent, whereas, for earnings above RM1,000,000 per
year, it’s 28 percent.
For comparison, on earnings above RM50,000
per year, the rate is eight percent. This shows that the middle class
bears a disproportionate share of the tax burden.
There
are also many foreign investors in Malaysia getting huge tax holidays
for many years, often at a disadvantage to domestic small and middle
industries. Some of them no longer deserve those tax holidays as they
are no longer “pioneers”.
The finance minister can tell these
foreign firms that to continue to enjoy tax holidays, there needs to be a
new “contract”: these firms invest heavily now to upgrade
technologically and increase productivity, to reduce reliance on
unskilled foreign workers and to create jobs for Malaysians, and to pay
Malaysians better. If not, their tax holidays would be gradually wound
down.
Ultimately, when corporations are making a profit while
Malaysians are doing very well in their jobs, as well as when the
country has a 60 percent middle-class society that qualifies to pay
income tax, it is a virtuous cycle for all Malaysians.
The
fundamental challenge facing this nation is the vicious cycle of low
pay, low skill, low technology adoption and low productivity.
As a
reminder to our prime minister today, I would like to share this
anecdote. I remember whispering to the then Penang chief minister Lim
Guan Eng while he was conducting dialogue with investors in Seoul, South
Korea, on June 4, 2008 that the government of prime minister Abdullah
Badawi announced a 40 percent petrol hike. We looked at each other,
shocked and stunned.
Abdullah’s faltering premiership, caused by
BN’s loss of a two-thirds majority and five state governments at the
general election on March 8, 2008, effectively evaporated into thin air.
Who advised Abdullah to do what he did? The chief advocate in the cabinet was Abdullah’s deputy Najib.
Who
benefited from the collapse of the Abdullah premiership after the fuel
hike decision? Najib. Who succeeded Abdullah as prime minister on April
3, 2009? Najib. Now, who is screaming: bring back the GST? Najib.
My advice for Ismail Sabri is that he should do a background check on those who fed him the idea of reintroducing GST, especially when it is a year or so before a general election has to be called.
Lest
we forget, the GST is the tax that punishes the poor, kills consumption
at all levels, doesn’t increase government revenue, and doesn’t benefit
the overall economy.
