Abolition of GST 'not an act to be popular'

KUALA LUMPUR: Pakatan Harapan's (PH) promise to abolish the Goods and Services Tax (GST) is not a populist move, but a promise being upheld that had largely contributed to the coalition's victory in the 14th General Election (GE14).
Deputy Finance Minister Datuk Amiruddin Hamzah was responding to a supplementary question by Datuk Ahmad Maslan (BN-Pontian) that the government had lost billions of ringgit from zero-rising GST since taking power, a move he claimed was only for the purpose of gaining popular support.
"I would like to tell Pontian, it is because of this decision of doing away with things that were burdening the rakyat that we promised in our manifesto, including abolishing GST, that you are now no longer here (the government) and sitting there (on the opposition bench).
"This is not an act to be popular. We just want to ensure the rakyat no longer suffer because of GST, something they have been complaining about.
"Hence, the government fulfilled its promise as pledged in the manifesto by zero-rising GST (temporarily until it is abolished) and reintroducing the Sales and Services Tax (SST)," he said in the Dewan Rakyat, here today.
PH had in its manifesto pledged to abolish the unpopular GST, that was introduced by BN in April 2015, as part of its '10 promises in 100 days'.
A motion to abolish the tax is expected to be tabled next week, with a bill for the implementation of SST to follow soon after.
Meanwhile, Amiruddin said the government has yet to fix a dateline for collections of the Tabung Harapan (TH), which has collected RM161.4 million to date, about RM10 million of which has come from foreign countries.
"Until now, we have not fixed until when to limit the collections for the fund because we are still getting donations from various quarters everyday," he said.
He also maintained that all contributions made by the people would be tax-exempted.