What is the GST really? but the gov't buys a private jet

From The Malaysian Insider:

The Malayian Insider wrote a pretty critical comment from the common person saying :

The 48-year-old Klang small trader’s views on the GST is part of a trend seen in The Malaysian Insider's survey on the new tax – the lower a respondent's household income, the more “negative” he feels about the new tax. 

This is despite extensive government PR campaigns to convince Malaysians that the tax was fair and that it would lead to a reduction in the prices of goods. 

“The government wants to tax us and tells us to save. But then it goes and buys a new private jet,” said Zaidi, referring to the RM465.4 million Airbus ACJ320 that Putrajaya admitted purchasing recently.

Although the above part is juicy and pretty much an extremely salacious headline, I'd like to focus on some of the half truth propaganda/ media blitz that the government has been spewing.  I fear that when people realize how bad it is, the ruling government will be in trouble because all they've been saying that this won't hurt that much.  I think it will.  What's worse than bad is a government who just is fooling themselves how alright the GST will be.

Putrajaya has claimed that the GST is part of its efforts to reform the current tax system, where only about 1.7 million out of 12 million workers pay income tax.

The above statement is quite true.   Most people don't pay tax.  Yet it is almost guaranteed everyone will.  Even the homeless person who buys food every day.

The tax burden will be spread throughout the population and will affect almost all goods and services. 

Yes it is spread through the population.  But the majority of any population are usually the poor.  so the burden is generally on the poor, not the rich.  It is also burdensome on the rich, but not to the same effect in terms of percentage of their income.

In terms of effective tax each group pays, for some poor groups, they might as well be paying 1000% more in taxes. A person making RM 3000 to RM 4000 per month will likely pay 300 percent more in taxes this year than last.

In exchange, personal income taxes would be reduced from 1% to 3% depending on the tax bracket. It is estimated that about 300,000 individuals would no longer pay income tax after GST.

Yes this is true, but as not many people pay tax, these new individuals will have to pay GST.  To find out how much you will likely pay, Just take your yearly expenditure, For example say a person spends RM2,000 a month on expenses. The 24,000 spent annually comes out to an GST tax of RM 1,540 a year.

A person paying income tax would likely have to pay maybe a hundred bucks on that per year, now they pay 1,540 in taxes per year.  the reduction in income tax isn't so good is it.  Honestly I'd rather the income tax increase than pay RM 1,540 a year on GST.

I hope I've put GST in perspective for some people out there.  No one can hide from GST, not even those who aren't working.