The Goods and Services Tax is not an ideal model of taxation

I REFER to the comment by Jalbir Singh Riar on Aug 16, 2021, in StarBiz, “OECD recommends that Malaysia reintroduce the GST”. I agree with Jalbir Singh that the Goods and Services Tax is a more efficient tax system than the Sales and Services Tax (SST). From the perspective of the revenue authorities, GST is the most effective mode of tax collection in the history of taxation. This is because the entire burden of collecting the tax is borne by GST-registered traders and the tax authorities merely conduct audits to ensure that these businesses account the tax correctly.

I was a pioneer in the implementation of GST in Singapore on April 1, 1994, and also conducted many seminars in Malaysia prior to its implemention of GST as a director of a GST academy in Malaysia. I would like to share my experience of more than 27 years in Singapore’s GST implementation and my training stint when GST was introduced in Malaysia.