Government is still mulling imposing GST on petrol and diesel, says Ahmad Husni
The government is still studying the possibility of implementing the Goods and Services Tax (GST) on petrol, The Edge reported today.
Speaking to the press after the launch of the National GST conference 2014 today, Finance Minister II Datuk Seri Ahmad Husni Hanadzlah said the government was currently conducting a study on subsidy rationalisations.
"When we implement subsidy rationalisation we want to make sure it will bring benefit to our people. We are looking at what salary level we will give subsidies to," he was quoted in the financial and investment news publication.
"Under the subsidy that we are currently giving we have exempted petrol (from sales tax). We are doing the subsidy rationalisation of RON95 and diesel, so we will make a decision later on whether to exempt petrol or not (from GST)," he added.
The full list of tax exempt and zero rated items is to be gazetted in August.
"We have made changes due to feedback received from rakyat, particularly on food items that previously we included under the GST and zero rated it," said Husni.
It was previously reported that Putrajaya was mulling over the possibility to exempt the people from paying fuel taxes on RON95 and diesel when the goods and services tax (GST) is implemented in April next year.
Deputy Finance Minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Maslan had said that this was because right now, RON95 and diesel were exempted from sales tax at the rate of 58.62 sen per litre and 40 sen per litre, respectively.
He said the subsidy and exemption of sales tax on the two commodities meant quite a large liability for the government.
"However, the government has yet to decide whether or not to impose GST on petrol and diesel.
"We want to see how much we can save from this effort before taking another subsidy rationalisation move," he had said when winding up debates on Supplementary Bill 2014 at the committee level at the Dewan Rakyat in Kuala Lumpur last month.
"GST is introduced with the aim to increase the country's revenue in a transparent, effective and efficient manners to improve the nation's competitiveness at the international level," he had added.
The opposition had alleged that the Barisan Nasional (BN) government was set to earn an extra RM3 billion should it imposed GST on the purchase of petrol and diesel.
PKR strategic director Rafizi Ramli had said that checks on the list of goods and services to be exempted from the tax clearly showed that the BN government was planning to do it. – July 10, 2014.
