Definitely a Budgie For the Pudgy!

The thing about Budgets nowadays (as opposed to a few years back) is how the real proposals are actually way back in appendices instead of the speech. What you end up with is a main body of the speech that conjures a truckload of fairy-telling about how the people’s suffering is being addressed by sophisticated sounding  words like “pillars” or “corridors”.

Anyway, that’s just my observation.

I don’t intend to repeat what will undoubtedly be covered in the national dailies anyway. So, here are my seven by seven pointers for this year’s (pretty subdued) nonsensical budget…

1. Those of you earning less than five figures are screwed!
2. Because those who ARE earning that (and way more) are gonna be taxed at the same top bracket as you are.
3. They will also be holding APs for hybrid cars that will screw Proton over so hard, their exhaust pipes will crack probably sell better than normal cars given their zero import tax and 50% discount on excise duty.
4. Oh, and then AP holder’s sugar-daddies can come and pump maybe a few billion Euros to their hybrid-techno-developho-kids via venture capital companies because these companies get… (let me hear it)… Gimme a Tax! Gimme an Ex! Gimme an Emp! Gimme the Ssssshern!
5. Now, once daddy’s money ventures over to their sons’ and/ or sons-in-law’s already overflowing bank accounts, how about another freebie? No pay 5% tax on bank interest.
6. You heard me. Nadda. Zip. Comprande?
7. What’s more… yes, there’s more for the rich… You know how those rich bastards they tend to get travelling allowances, Blackberries, private schooling and nannies for their kids, phone bills, hospital bills, acupuncture treatments, spa therapies (and the list doesn’t seem to end in one page)… all paid for by their companies? Guess what? Uhuh. That’s right.

Now, for the less endowed…

1. Those earning RM3,500 and below will save 50 ringgit next year to pay for their one pump of diesel at the gas station.
2. Because for the same priced road tax, Proton has to bend over and lower their pant-dana’s again who wouldn’t want cars that run on a cheaper fuel?
3. That’s 50 ringgit for the entire year. Because 400 minus 350 is 50. Ya’ll still with me?
4. If you divide that by 365 days, that’s just under 14 sen of savings per day. Can’t buy shit, did I hear you say? (Was there some lowering of import duty for “baja” for that matter?)
5. You could try to eek out RM20 if you make your own fire instead of switching on the light at nights.
6. Good news is, they also promise us decent public transportation by 2014. We’ll need it. Know why?
7. Because by then, our kingmaker states would have run outta oil and our cars would be display units at the junk museum. Or still in queue at Puspakom, whichever.

As for the majority of us who fit in between those two extremes. Nothing. Because the rest of the national coffers goes far east to make kingmakers happy. With that, I bid y’all a Happy Merdeka weekend.

The Opposition’s Budget

Back to politics. See… It would be logical to think that if Malaysians were keen on the current opposition alliance forming a new government (since the head is now sorta attached), they should seriously consider what the opposition has to offer, right? Or is this merely a case of “punish BN”? …. No…. Really?

Okay, so I looked around blogosphere for some semblance of citizens taking the whole “new government by September 16th” thing seriously. I looked for anyone with anything to say about this. (For those too lazy to click that, its basically DAP’s version of Budget 2009). And yes, I had nothing better to do I read it. Hey, the way I see it, doesn’t hurt to be prepared.

So, what’s my impression of Rocket’s plan for next year’s spending? Here’s a snippet.

1. Its short. But then again, I think one of the papers somewhere mentioned that this was only a brief;
2. One of their proposals has a noble cause on the surface, but is really taking the poor underpaid worker on a roundabout trip. If I read it right, this is how the circling goes. Reduce EPF of poor man. Pay poor man “Malaysia Bonus”. Pay a quarter of that to him in cash (woopeedoo) and the other three quarts back into EPF (poor man falls to the ground when his inner ear pops from the spinning);
3. They sneaked in the “Renegotiate Unfair Contracts” for political mileage. It ain’t about allocating the budget.
4. They REALLY focus on the poor (especially the part where they repeat over and over about not being race selective, we get it already! Move along with it!)…. basically, there is almost nothing given to the ordinary middle class need-a-sampan-to-get-home-from-work urbanite (damn leftists)
5. The part about the Seed Fund is begging for corrupt mismanagement and cronyism… (oops! I mean “mentoring”). Not to mention, startups don’t usually make any profits lar (if you haven’t heard, the internet bubble burst after you sold your listed company, you lucky bastard Mr. Economic Advisor to the Secretary General), so that bit about tax exemption for the first three years is just so… current government.
6. Oh, I take it back. They DO focus some on the rich. Look! “To encourage private investor participation, losses incurred by such investments shall be tax deductible from the investors’ individual or corporate income tax” (I can already hear our top ten gazillionaires breathe sighs of relief. For those who don’t get it… here, this is why my salary is paid by one of those scrooges: Rich dude puts all his money into a startup that he owns. Have the government gift him a dollar-for-dollar, why don’t cha? Tank it. Get tax deduction and pay zero tax.)

I’d better stop here. Lest I be accused of treason on September 17.

P.S. I voted for the fella. Really.

Get ready for an eventful tabling!

I know, I know… this blog isn’t supposed to be about politics. So, it isn’t. Well, maybe it is… or not. Oh hell, just let me get on with it, will ya?

It’s still gossip as far as local-news-not-covering-it-means-gossip goes. What am I babbling about? Was reading Rocky’s Bru’s post about Anwar coming back with a bang and saw this -

… DAP stalwart Lim Kit Siang told a joint press conference a little later that the Pakatan Rakyat will insist that the Dewan Rakyat Speaker hasten the swearing-in of Anwar Ibrahim as a Member of Parliament and “… as leader of the Opposition, seated right in front of the Prime Minister.” 

Kit warned that if Anwar is not sworn in, the tabling of the 2009 Budget by PM Abdullah Ahmad Badawi this Friday will be made to be very difficult.

Yowzer! Did I say ho-hum? Let me go eat my words now.

Update: Damn! (and I mean it in the most PKR supporting kinda way)

News that inform, sorta… not.

Found this short but not so sweet article in one of our national dailies. These kinda articles crop up quite a bit in our dailies. I’m not really sure if most are cases of poorly worded answers in Parliament or simply our newsmen being clueless about the contents of their own writing. No, I really think its the fault of our local journalist this time. No amount of quoting from a reliable source should excuse this kinda reporting. No heads, no tails. Just a remarkably twisted creature borne of quoting an answer without its question preceding (because we newspaper readers are mind readers, you see), with liberty granted us to freely and completely take it out of the context from which it was first meant to mean because the idiot fella who wrote it probably needed to submit an article short enough to fill that tiny slot under National news.

English translation: To those familiar with the tax laws, this piece of news is both silly in its effort to be squashed into one paragraph and, in a word, useless. Here, reproduced in all its short and hanging glory:-

THE five per cent service tax will not be abolished as it was a major source of revenue for the government. Deputy Finance Minister Datuk Kong Cho Ha said the tax was only imposed on restaurants that had an annual financial turnover of RM3 million, unlike the previous amount of RM500,000. He was replying to a question from Mohd Nor Othman (BN-Hulu Terengganu) yesterday.

Not expecting much…

So, this Friday is budget day. Given the preoccupation they all have with the by-election up north and the end of year party elections lack of squeeks from the Ministry and the absence of proper consultations with the industries, one can pretty much sum up the I’m-sure-they’ll-use-the-word-”people-centric” budget in two words - ho hum.

For those interested though, stay tuned.

The Silent Yank of the Concession Carpet

The annoying part about the way our tax system goes, is how so many forms of guidelines and ruling, minutes of dialogues and administrative concessions look, taste and feel legally binding, but the authorities insist they ain’t. So, the taxpayers end up tight-roping their way through their compliance process with a legal smelling safety net assuring them it’s not gonna rip if they fall on it. Most times though, the taxpayer ends up breaking some limbs and bleeding on the ground. (Sorry, am in a morbid mood.)

Take for instance, an administrative concession given by the Royal Customs & Excise Department in their guidelines on defining “management services” for applicability for service tax. Within that guideline, which was issued in 1998, a concession reads:-

In view of the current economic situation of the country and to encourage domestic investments and savings, the Customs authorities have administratively excluded the following financial services from the ambit of service tax:

• purchases and sales of shares, warrants, bonds, etc.
• savings in unit trusts, banks, trust funds.

Now, one would assume that if the authorities have in mind to revoke the concession, at least a tiny squeek of a notice to those who rely on such freebies would help, won’tcha think? Or are we expected to kill some trees writing in to verify? Okay, maybe I’m being whiny here. But have a look at the activities listed there for a sec and think a little. What kinda company would be providing those services? Would there be many such companies? Would they be regulated and possibly even listed? Would listed companies be okay about showing their penalized asses in public because the authorities changed their minds silently?!

The individual: Don’t give a shit.

The CEO: What the hell?!

The tax sucker personnel, feverishly trying to save his job ring up Customs: C’mon… Pick up, damn it!

Will a Good Tax Blogger Please Stand Up?

So I finally found some tax blogs and linked them. There are tonnes of them from the US, but very very scarcely from Asia, except India. Instead of linking them all, I thought I’d just pick those with funny posts or that are relatively easier to digest just so my tiny brain won’t combust due to common and civil law differences.

Personally, I don’t do much international tax work… let me rephrase… I don’t do much other country specific tax work…. so many of these other blogs are purely for knowing I’m not the only pathetic no life who yaks taxation educational and entertainment purposes. Where are the tax authority links, you ask? Have a read of my earlier posts. I. Am. Not. Suicidal.

Day 2 of NTC: The Malaysian Government endorses conduits and treaty shopping

Yeah. You read that right. I spent a good chunk of after lunch trying to digest that the great LOFSA chairman was actually saying that. He was literally providing the audience with structures which blatantly back treaty shopping and the use of conduits for purposes of eliminating withholding tax. Who said the authorities were not business friendly? And I didn’t even have to pay $250,000 to turn the word “evasion” to “avoidance”. Extra! Extra! Below 2 grand (ringgit, mind you) to turn the word “avoidance” to “government endorsed”! Get it while it’s hot!

But, having said that, I wouldn’t hold my breath that the Inland Revenue will actually swallow that. They probably kept quiet for multifolded reasons. One, they were asleep during the presentation. Two, the fella was a Dato’, so due respect must be given. Three, Labuan, despite being practically a ghost town since its inception as a “financial hub” is probably still the darling of yeah, okay, we’ll buy into your “we’re not a low tax jurisdiction” crap just so we can say Malaysia pun boleh rebrand a deserted island financial hub. Fine. Cars are cheap there. But personally, it would really help this overexcised blogger if they could also swim across the South China Sea over to the peninsular. How about we look into that, Dato’?

Anyway, I digress. Four, they can always say that “minutes conference statements are fairy tales conjured to give you that warm fuzzy feeling before we send you a heart stopping six year but get ready in 7 days audit notice not binding on us.”

Five. There are foreign observers and fellow presenters. Why not dazzle them a little with some flying pigs?

All I have to say about that particular session, which kinda overshadowed some serious gaps in… well, everything for the second day, is that, we Malaysian taxpayers should take today’s “facts” with some salt. A whole bucket of it. And if your kidneys konk, don’t worry… go to one of those tax financed free GH’s all around the country.

Day 1 of NTC: The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

Today was the first of two days of the National Tax Conference. Its an event attended mostly by people within the industry, sometimes those who don’t work in the industry but “are interested”, those who have nothing better to do and those looking for free food and no work for two days at the expense of companies who send them.

Compared to the previous years, today was both better and worse. Better in a sense that the venue’s management fixed its air-conditioning (last year’s humid tropical theme wasn’t very fun) and so far, the speakers are presenting their topics rather clearly (I so did not appreciate the guy from Hong Kong last year)… Well, okay, there was the QC fella who called the Director General, “Dato’ Hummus” but I’m not sure anybody was awake enough to catch that.

It was worse in a sense that there was no representative from the Ministry of Finance to officiate the ceremony. At least last year, they sent Mr. Backup-aka-FM2. Hmmm… wait. Let me rethink whether that’s good or bad. Or maybe its starting to get ugly up in Permatang Pauh, no ministers or deputies to spare.

Having attended quite a number of conferences, one repeating theme never fails to annoy me. There’s always an answer that goes, “This is a policy matter, so, I can’t give a shit comment.” If its bloody policy, then get an authority on policy! You’d think that after 8 years of the same excuse, the organisers should have the sense to find someone who can answer policy questions. No points for guessing who that might be. What’s the point of a tax conference if most questions on tax policy are left hanging? You say its not the right forum to solve such issues or that a committee or task-force of experts would need to examine and test run and study all the facts and stats of the world to death before policy questions can be answered.

I say, bull.

The theme of the conference is “Towards an Excellent Delivery System” or something like that. First question of the day and the answer was, “It’s a policy matter, so… blah blah blah (not for me to answer)”. Yeap. Pretty excellent, I’d say.

If a food blog is called FLOG, is this a TLOG?

Hello, taxpayers. Yes, I have been thinking long and hard about starting a blog about the profession I am in. I’m sick of seeing people roll their eyes whenever they hear that cursed word that is so closely associated with “death”, so, I decided to straighten out (or affirm) some misconceptions. Tax is a great topic to bash and occasionally to discuss too, believe it or not. Of course, there are many potentially undesirable repercussions one could end up with for deciding to air one’s frustrations or have a general ramble about the major source of our government’s internally sourced revenue. Because firstly, you’re not really THAT anonymous, not even with a stupid name like “Taxy Driver” to hide behind. Second, you are always underpaying something in their books. Always.

So, why am I here? I am an avid and frequent reader of many types of blogs. So, it comes only naturally that I start one. A Malaysian tax blog is long overdue and much needed, as you’ll find out why if you plan to follow my posts. Of course, there’s this site, but I think the creators kinda ignored it for about a year now.

Okay, now, a warning. Rely on anything said here at your own risk, and don’t say I didn’t warn you. I started this blog for me. I rant, I don’t advise. This blog is just so I can to poke fun, vent some and perhaps, even meet a kindred spirit or two. Why? So that I don’t end up in an asylum in a few years time for whacking an Inland Revenue officer senseless. This is my therapy. I need it so that I can pay my taxes and do my day job without causing physical harm to those around me.

Those of you who might be interested, just keep a lookout on this space… otherwise, thanks for reading till the end of this post.