My first thoughts on the Najib administration’s 2015 Budget:
Prime Minister Najib has done it again. For his office operating expenses he has given himself RM9 billion and for development expenditure RM13 billion, totalling a whopping RM22 billion. As a comparison the army that has jets and ships and tanks has a mere RM17 billion budget. The Health department with doctors, nurses and hospitals have RM24 billion. The home office has RM13 billion. This year’s budget is RM274 billion. That means the PM controls about 8% of the national budget and his office does not do anything in particular. It does not run hospitals or schools. It does not run the police or army. So why the massive budget?
The PM gave us a “magic” calculation on GST. He said GST next year will collect RM23.3 billion next year. So we have to deduct the cancellation of SST by RM 13.8 billion. So far ok. Logical. Then he said there is a savings of RM3.8 billion of exempted GST goods. So he says we have to deduct that too. That's illogical. Then he says he will give back to the rakyat through BR1M in the sum of RM4.9 billion. So he says must also deduct RM4.9 billion too. That’s just plain wrong because he paid out RM4 billion last year, so the actual deduction should be RM0.9 billion only. Therefore based on his magic calculations, GST will only cost the people RM700 million in extra tax burden on the rakyat. That is just misleading. According to my math GST next year will cost all of us RM8.5 billion of extra taxes. That means every single Malaysian will pay a net extra tax of RM283 to the government next year.
And two other minor observations:
Najib is wearing Pakatan Rakyat orange colour.
He has a high tech teleprompter.
