At a time of economic stringency, the government should have kept within its operating and development budgets, instead of coming to Parliament in asking for additional allocation of funds.
What is being asked is not a small sum of money either, as the total sum for the 1983 and 1984 supplementary operating and development votes come to $2.4 billion.
Continue reading BMF Scandal – Token Prosecution and Punishments
Speech by Parliament Opposition Leader, DAP Secretary-General and MP for Kota Melaka, Lim Kit Siang in Dewan Rakyat on the 1985 budget on October 24, 1984
I congratulate the new Finance Minister, Daim Zainuddin, for delivering his maiden Budget last Friday – and if I am not mistaken, it was also his maiden speech in Parliament.
Daim Zainuddin’s budget has another distinction in that it provoked a public protest and demonstration in Johore Bahru on Sunday for its being a “rich man budget”, at a period of deteriorating economy and worsening poverty arising from escalating prices of essential foodstuff and scarcity of low-cost housing. Continue reading Daim’s Maiden Budget
(Speech by the Parliamentary Leader, DAP Secretary-General and Member of Parliament for Petaling, Lim Kit Siang, in the Dewan Rakyat on the 1980 Budget on October 22, 1979)
The 1980 Budget, presented by the Finance Minister, Tengku Razaleigh, has been generally well-received by the press and the people, in particular with regard to the long overdue increase of personal relief’s for individual taxpayers.
The DAP had consistently called for the upward revision of personal tax reliefs for individuals in this House, as the repeated bouts of inflation and the loss of the purchasing power of the ringgit since the formulation of the income tax laws in the 1940s have made the reliefs derisory! Although long overdue, we commend the Finance Minister for at long last taking heed of the crushing burden borne by the lower income brackets by revising the income tax personal reliefs to more realistic levels. Continue reading DAP calls for correction of fundamental New Economic Policy implementation defects
DAP calls for reform of income tax laws to provide for an educational rebate for Malaysians with less than $15,000 annual income to finance their children’s post-institutions in Malaysia or abroad.
Viewed in the light of past budgets, where the general tendency is to impose increasingly heavy incidence of taxation on Malaysians, particularly the lower income groups, Tengku Razaleigh’s maiden budget featuring the $60 income tax rebate appears to be a relief. Continue reading DAP calls for reform of income tax laws
Income tax laws, to be an instrument of equity and the fairer distribution of income and social opportunities, must not be rigid and inflexible – but must be alive to the economic problems and difficulties of taxpayers.
There has been a lot of talk about restructuring of society, but there does not appear to be any realisation of the need to restructure our taxation laws to achieve a progressive, poverty-free Malaysia. Continue reading Educational tax rebate proposal
The DAP welcomes the long overdue separate income tax assessment for working wives and the removal of the absurd arrangement whereby a married couple pays more tax than two single persons with the same earnings. We are particularly happy because this had been one of the issues in the DAP 1974General Elections Manifesto.
However, the income tax laws need a thorough overhaul if it is to serve the objective of creating a more just and equal society through a fairer distribution of wealth and income. Continue reading Income tax reforms