In a statement last weekend, a DAP MP asked the government to exempt the fees for security services at gated communities from GST. In another statement, another DAP MP also asked the government to exempt GST from the monthly management and maintenance fees paid by condo dwellers.
The government has decided to implement the GST because it is a broad-based tax system. The GST is designed such that the responsibility of paying tax is shared by a broader section of the population. Currently, only 1.8 million out of a population of 30 million are paying income tax. The GST, being a tax system based on consumption, would be able to collect tax from more people depending on their level of consumption. The more one consumes, the more GST one would have to pay.
At the same time, the GST is designed to be a progressive tax system. The implementation of GST would not be a burden to the low and middle-income households. The government has a tough job of balancing the need to broaden the tax-base and ensuring that low and middle-income households would not be adversely affected by it. After a 30-year period of analysis and consultations, the government had come up with a Malaysian model of GST which is considered to be one of the best in the world.
The decision to live in a condo or a gated community is a lifestyle choice. If one can afford to live in a condo or a gated community then one should be able to afford the maintenance fees and the security services fees, together with the GST imposed. This is part of the price of having the prestige and security of living in a condo or gated community.
If targeted groups are asking to be exempted from GST, then it would defeat the objective of GST being a broad-based tax system.
DAP is highlighting the issue of maintenance fees and security services fees being imposed GST solely for political mileage. Most of the condo dwellers and house-owners in gated communities are from one particular ethnic group who happen to be the core of its supporters. In making such calls, DAP wants to be seen as a defender of the rights of that particular ethnic group; when actually it is pandering to the whims and interests of a high-income group, furtively deviating from its mantra of “defending the low and middle-income groups”.
I am a member of that ethnic group and I will be affected by the increase of the maintenance fees since I am living in a high-end condo but I do not support the call by DAP to exempt maintenance fees from GST. I transcend my own personal interests for the greater good of the rakyat and the nation with the implementation of the GST. I hope every right thinking Malaysian would be able to do the same.
