MCA has urged the Madani government to be more diligent and prudent in its decision-making to avoid situations that cause unnecessary anxiety among the people.
Its deputy secretary-general Datuk Pamela Yong said this while welcoming the government’s recent decision to rescind the imposition of sales and services tax (SST) on traditional and complementary medicine (TCM) practitioners.
“This SST requirement issued back in December 2023 had earlier raised concerns among service providers and patients.
“Calls were made to the government to treat T&CM care on an equal level as with modern medical care, and to thus exempt TCM services from being slapped with taxes.
“MCA hopes such unnecessary anxiety-causing situations could be avoided in the future,” she said in a statement.
According to data from the Health Ministry, she said, as of January this year, a total of 6,888 TCM practitioners were registered as required by law.
In a statement, the Finance Ministry had earlier said the decision was made after taking into consideration feedback from related stakeholders and TCM practitioners.
TCM covers Malay, Chinese, and Indian traditional medicine, as well as homoeopathy, chiropractic, osteopathy, and Islamic medicine.
Yong said traditional Chinese medicine practitioners accounted for more than 4,000, or two-thirds of TCM practitioners and the government’s initial intention would have affected a certain segment of society with taxes to a larger extent.
“MCA has repeatedly recommended to the government to reinstate the goods and services tax (GST) at a new rate of 4%.
“Party president Datuk Seri Wee Ka Siong had also recently highlighted that the GST is a far more efficient tax system than the SST.
“GST enhances our country’s finances, increases our government’s revenue and enables the provision of subsidies for daily essentials, and the abolishment of GST by the PH government in 2018 resulted in a significant revenue shortfall,” she said.
She said this was highlighted in a recent article published by the Institute of Strategic Analysis and Policy Research (Insap) that GST generated a robust RM44 billion in 2017, contributing significantly to the national coffers.
“It has been estimated that had the GST not been abolished, GST would have collected around RM63.5 billion instead of RM 35.8 billion from SST in 2024.
“With data showing that the outdated SST tax system is ineffective in expanding the national revenue, this may explain why the government feels the need to introduce a slew of new taxes or raise the tax percentage to top up the treasury,” she added. – The Vibes, February 21, 2024
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