KUALA LUMPUR: Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng today admitted that the implementation of the sales and service tax (SST) might have been done in a hurry, but said claims of business costs escalating as a result should be investigated.
Lim was responding to the Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers (FMM) claim that cost of doing business escalated after SST was introduced to replace the goods and services tax (GST) abolished in May last year.
“The price rise under SST are lower than GST as the consumer price index (CPI) was only 1% under SST compared to 3.7% under the GST,” he said.
Lim said he had attended 18 dialogues throughout the country to explain the impact of SST, which was introduced on September 1 last year.
“I am willing to meet with FMM to discuss whether the price increases are attributable to SST or other structural reasons,” he said.
It was reported that reverting to SST would cause the government some RM25 billion in tax revenue.