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©New
Straits Times (Used by permission)
by Azmi Anshar
DEWAN RAKYAT Aug 29, 2008: Let’s cut to the chase. Everyone
literally agrees that the annual budget tabled by the Finance Minister of the
day is always designed for next year’s national financial and social prosperity.
That aside, every Malaysian with an Inland Revenue tax file, a hefty cost of
living to weigh down and a streak of selfishness would demand to know: “what’s
in it for me that I can enjoy immediately?” Take your pick. The PM had been
generous.
Budget 2009, tabled by the Prime Minister-cum-Finance
Minister at 4pm today, has reams of relief for the working stiff and the moneyed
class alike. If you’re among the millions enduring the daily drudgery of the
national rat race, there are a slew of goodies you can rummage from, except for
more sin tax. If you smoke, and if the annual trend of increasing excise duty on
the killer sticks is consistent, here’s the inevitable prognosis: if the carbon
monoxide you sucked from those fags don’t kill you, the price per stick per box
will!
At 60 sen tax per box of 20 sticks, your daily puffing fix just torched a bigger
hole in that miserable thing you call a monthly budget. But wait. Somebody
opined that a regular 20-pack can bust the RM9 mark after the tobacco companies
dazzle themselves with some creative calculations over the weekend. Smokers of
Malaysia: sweat on this!
However, boozers were mercifully spared of outrageous raids in their quailing
budgets – the PM saw to it that your drinking sessions with your buddies are
just as merry and tipsy, not that pub/bar drinking had been any affordable over
the years but in these days of battling the inflationary demon, a zero-tax on
booze are little mercies drinkers are mighty glad to grab.
It use to be that smoking is the most favourite poison for even the most
budget-conscious Joe Public who hardly knows what it means to go clubbing other
than ride their motorbikes and forever be slapped with the churlish sobriquet
‘Mat Rempit’. But if puffing away means no more free spending beyond the limits
of the lowest pay grade or unemployment benefits, than what’s the near-abject
poor dude/chick suppose to lean on for a personal non-vice vice?
Here’s a giggly cheer: you don’t have to pay any electricity bill if your home
consumes below RM20 a month from Oct 1 to Dec 31, 2009. What a lifesaver! If you
know of no other means of increasing your annual taxable income to breach
RM35,000, cheer up. The Budget has some dishy giveaways – tax rebate spikes by
RM50 to RM400, all income from savings interest are tax-free and you get to buy
various consumer applications at the lower import duties between 10-60% and
5-30%. It’s time to get rid of that sickly-working microwave ovens, rice
cookers, blenders and electric kettles and drop by Court’s Mammoth at this
moment to replace the whole ugly lot.
Can’t afford fine dining at the fanciest and most exotic restaurants and
eateries? Beef up the grub larder now that import duties on vermicelli,
biscuits, fruit juices and canned sweet corn has been excused. That
diesel-slurping jalopy you call a car is finally getting a break: its road tax
has been reduced to the same level as cars with petrol engines. Here’s to more
nights of road warrior cruising.
The working guy with a RM2,400 annual travel allowance and below will love this:
full tax exemption. Further tax exemptions for the working guy: mobile,
telephone and Internet bills paid by your employers. More small mercies. But
here’s a curious break: health benefits your employer gives you now covers
acupuncture and ayurvedic. Pain in the back? Prick some pins, relieve the ache
and earn tax breaks. Feel that herbs prescribed in ayurvedic treatment allows a
Deepak Chopra-like ‘magical mind, magical body’ empowerment? Power to you and
your tax break.
If you work for the Government and likely to be a union member earning less than
RM3,000 in total household income, how’s this for relief: RM180 a month subsidy
which works out to RM2,160 a year, enough assuagement in there for a nice
end-of-year vacation perhaps in Tioman Island for the family. There’s more. A
bonus of one-month salary subject to a minimum of RM1,000 for working insanely
hard this year. Now we’re talking. By next month and in December, you can
splurge on that sleek home theatre-in a box you’ve been drooling over since the
neighbours had been ramping up quake-like decibels from the Star Wars dogfight
scenes.
The moneyed lot can finally scream in finite ecstasy: their maximum income tax
bracket of 28% has drop by a single per cent for next year’s assessment. If your
taxed income is in the millions annually, what you thought was spare change is
now enough to redecorate the villa or pay insurance to obscenely continue to
maintain the Aston Martin. There is a percentage drop for the middle-class to
swoon to too – marginal tax rate of 13% will drop to 12%. Still not enough for
that 1st class cabin seat on the A-380 to London?
Notwithstanding the sin tax, the margins chronicled above were micro-details on
what the working class (you and me and about 10 million others) would earn or
not pay in the next several weeks or months. As for the other macro-relief and
tax breaks, it will be a while before they trickle down to your pay cheques but
let’s be patient about that. It’s the least the Government could provide for you
after that lobotomy they electrocuted you with when they pumped steroids into
the fuel price.
But with this amount of relief, breaks and exemptions being distributed by the
PM today, you would appraise Budget 2009 as a general election budget. Drop the
cynicism: the polls and Permatang Pauh are all history and there’s nothing to
campaign for, so, it may be that the PM is giving you the comfort for you to
survive next year when the inflationary demon hews fire and spews blood and gore
on your hapless earnings by which time your day-to-day existence may need a
drastic redefinition.
For now, let’s deem this as a budget for the survivalists.
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Circular No 297/2008
