According to Abu Sofian Yacoob, the government should wait for the right time to reimplement GST to avoid repeating past mistakes.

“If the government wants to reintroduce GST, it shouldn’t be anytime soon, but maybe early next year. Then we can start with a minimal rate, around 2% or 3%.”

“Don’t repeat mistakes like in the past, when they said it might be 4% and it was 6% when it was implemented. Everyone was shocked.

“If it’s 6%, it will be just replacing the sales and services tax, so there’s no difference,” he told FMT.

He also said the government should look into the payment systems administered by the customs department and the improvements that needed to be made, especially regarding the categories of taxable goods.

He said essential goods and daily necessities should either be exempted or zero-rated if there was a possibility of the goods being taxed.

“The most crucial thing before implementation is that the support system in the customs department needs to be improved. There seems to be a lot of flaws, such as the tax refund process,” he added.

Previously, prime minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob had told Nikkei Asia that the government was keen on reintroducing GST to increase the country’s revenue.

He said the government would not reject the possibility of reintroducing the tax system as an effective way to increase the country’s revenue to deal with the increasing inflation and cost of living.

However, he stressed that the decision to reimplement GST was still being studied.