The tax debate: Why I favour the GST over the SST

I would like to address a number of points raised in the recent webinar hosted by the think tank Ideas (Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs) and reported in The Star on May 23, 2020.

It is probably correct to say that the abolished GST (goods and services tax), net of refunds, did not yield significant revenue gains over the old SST (sales and services tax). However, I put that down to the design and implementation of the GST which could have been better. The tax was trying to do too much with zero rating, exemptions and special rules that mimicked the SST that it replaced. I, however, cannot quite see how the tax was unfair as claimed by some. In fact, I believe GST was a more equitable measure compared with the taxes in force at that time in Malaysia. Chief among the objectives of implementing the GST was to have a broader and more stable tax base. Given that objective, it was inevitable that someone somewhere had to pay more tax.