Thursday, November 29, 2018
Thursday, November 22, 2018
Make Budget 2019 a real game changer
Make Budget 2019 a real game changer..
We just had the first
ever PH budget 2019 by the new Finance Minister Mr. Lim Guan Eng and lots of
changes believed to be for New Malaysia in the process especially in the taxes
and the collection of more taxes to resolve the sort of financial shortcomings
after BN’s rule of more than 60 years especially now we have a national debts of
RM1 trillion and more which is likely to be accumulated more than decrease it
ever. There are fundamental reasons why the national debts are insurmountable as
the fiscal budget would continue to be in deficit for obvious reasons.
The PH
Government has form a Tax reform Committee which has come out with Special Voluntary
Disclosure Program 2019 or Tax Amnesty in the immediate terms and long term
solutions would come later.
It
is one of the good measures of IRB Tax Review Committee, such move would close
the leakages and thus increase the taxpayers base namely individuals,
partnerships and corporate sector namely SMEs.
The intention is obvious to collect more tax.
Operational
Guidelines No. 1/2018 by the Inland Revenue Board of Malaysia with a special
program for voluntary disclosure is a new tax frontier that IRBM really mean
business to collect more taxes. Whether it will succeed or fail is yet to be
seen in the land of Malaysia Boleh.
With 1MDB or
without, the tax base in line with OECD would need to be increased to secure
much better revenue.
The burden of
the very much increased national debts is too much for the same group of
taxpayers and those responsible for that should be made to resolve that national debts.
Going by the
trend of corruption not 4% of the GDP annually but more likely 30% , are the
BN’s political proxies/ cronies for 60 years prepared to voluntary disclosure
and surely incapable to pay the relevant and related taxes and be bankrupt in such process or already migrated
elsewhere?
Given the
imperfect operations and lopsidedness of any system and no exception for tax,
would the same group of known taxpayers be further exploited for more tax
revenue to patch the revenue leakages in 1MDB (repayment of dubious debts),
missing GST refund RM19.4 billion, missing IRB refund RM16 billions making up many
hundreds of billions? Such approach
would inevitably impact adversely to the economic and social condition in
society in term of employment as many firms and companies could fold up.
We have seen how
GST at 6% had adversely impacted the consumers and the business communities/
taxpayers. Even SST at 6% for the
restaurant sector with a threshold of RM1.5m can cause irreversible setback
when most restaurants are earning less than RM1.5m especially in Sabah. Such
smaller restaurants can attract more customers to them and so those bigger
restaurants can face a big decline of patronage. Taxes is good for the nation but the
unexpected impact can arise and how to over come such reality of customers
choices?.So I hope the government would address such unexpected but normal anomaly
in the business world to mitigate such damages .
I hope the Tax
Review Committee whilst attempting closing of leakages would consider the
following (both short and long terms):-
1. Usage/classification
of the revenue of tax penalties separating it from the mainstream of collected
taxes or revenue for the benefit of educating taxpayers and tax agents/ tax
personnel.
2. Review the
polygamy practice of tax relief and other relevant treatments of the extended
families in many other aspects as burdensome for society at large. It is part and parcel of the International
Convention for the elimination of racial discrimination (ICERD) which is likely
to be ratified soon .
3. Treatment of
Zakat in the Income Tax return form in the context of ICERD. For both items 2 and 3, many billions
annually could be avoided as a departure from national commitment as religion
is still private and personal despite some claim it as a national context. If item 2 and 3 are excluded, the taxpayers’
base can be enlarged immediately hence collecting much more taxes soon.
4. Petronas with
global business network dealing with its tax implication for Malaysia.
5. What would
happen if Petronas cannot come up with the RM30b tax to off set the missing GST
and IRB tax refund and the victims depending on such refunds for cash flows would
be burdened for no refund promptly.
6. Threshold for new
SMEs for accrual accounting so that they can be in cash accounting especially
for contractual businesses where payments/ collections is always delayed and
even contra-ed for work done when taxes have to be paid first even for non collected
turnover in the context of accrual accounting.
Some of these items can even be bad debts affecting the much needed cash
flows.
7. Cryptocurrency
and tax treatment thereof for the volatility of price fluctuation as a reality
where the determination of profit is concerned..
8. The issue of
climate change as financial commitment by the corporate and individual possibly
with some tax reliefs before it is too late to save the degraded earth to save
ourselves in the noble effort of #EcoGeneration as sponsored by the Government
for the well-being of all.
9. Would the Tax
review Committee open to town hall sessions to enable more views to be
incorporated in the new taxation schemes?
In the budget
2019, many other issues may need to be addressed in terms of clarity, revision,
and refined for implementation so that the taxpayers would not lose any
confidence in the new PH government.
Joshua Y C Kong
23/11/ 2018
Monday, November 12, 2018
A timely reminder of climate change in Lok Kawi Park, Sabah
A timely reminder of climate
change in Lok Kawi Park, Sabah
Better
things for animals at Lok Kawi Park (LKP) Sabah (DE 31 Oct 2018) are both
encouraging and in appreciation of wildlife in enclosed area for the public to
view them in close by scenario, while those in the wild are out of reach for
most people except the bad news of helpless dead animals in the newspapers.
But
wildlife is best maintained in the wilderness for all animals and needless to
say that.
Leading biologists in an editorial in the journal Science
recently said that if we want to avoid mass extinctions and preserve the
ecosystems all plants and animals depend on, governments should protect a third
of the oceans and land by 2030 and half by 2050, with a focus on areas of high
biodiversity.
It’s not just about saving wildlife, says Jonathan
Baillie of the National Geographic Society, one of the authors. It’s also about saving ourselves.
Of course LKP has nothing to compare in term of
size and natural environment for the animals in captivity.
If you go to the Internet, there are various
websites where foreigners and local do have many mixed comments which should be
heeded and acted upon with best interests wherever and whenever possible.
We should be always mindful of the rising
temperature even in Sabah in the climate change scenario. But how to mitigate
the damages of rising temperature when such animals were in the wild freely
moving to cool and suitable cover.
But in the zoo like LKP, such privilege is
absent. So caretakers should always on
the lookout as how the animals feel in the rising temperature to stay
comfortable and even to be active and alive. So how do we to maintain the
welfare of such animals in captivity?
Gelugob, one of only 10 Sumatran rhinoceros in captivity worldwide, died
on Jan 11, 2014 at the Lok Kawi Wildlife Park.
Sabah Wildlife Department veterinarian Dr Rosa Sipangkui said Gelugob’s
age was about 37 years. There were probably less that 150 Sumatran rhinos left
in the wild today, in Sumatra and Borneo, he said.
Sipangkui said Gelugob’s health had deteriorated
rapidly since early January and it had refused to drink and ate little.
Nobody seems to know why this Rhino died in
captivity. I strongly believe it died
from heat of rising temperature especially in the big mud pond without any good
shade. I did visit the zoo and noticed
that the Rhino was half body in the open pond without moving. Obviously, it was the heat of the muddy water
that prevented the big animal to be active.
I had been to a local fish pond where the fish
breeders were complaining that the fishes were not growing in size for months
(waiting to die then) and my visiting friend took a temperature gauge to
measure the water and found it of excessive heat especially around midday as
the fish pond was without trees and shade.
Like the Gelugob’s case, did anyone of the
caretakers take the effort to measure the daily temperature of the muddy water,
the normal habitat for that animal? So
caretakers should be observant of the behaviour of all animals at all times. Animals
cannot talk but their body languages are powerful to convey messages and the
caretakers must learn how to sense these animals in their behaviour especially
in worsening climate change with no exception for Sabah.
I do take care of many dogs at home and observe all
the time how such domestic animals behave in heat and raining period. They would be stressed when the midday sun is
very hot and would try to go under any shade available. When rain comes, I would call that dogs
suffer from rain-phobia namely avoiding rain at all cost even after the rain is
gone as observed.
It is a normal thing in many houses that pets
especially dogs are kept in short lease, small and heated cage where the
environment is without any tree to provide for shade. Animal cannot drink heated water in open
spaces. You expect the animals to
survive for long and not to succumb to heat. Some call it cruelty to animals
but how ignorant or even guilty can the owners of such pets be so inhumane?
So I hope better things at LKP would do justice for
the animals for the public to enjoy and support from the public with good
inputs for consideration.
Imagine we need to maintain wildlife in the
wilderness in a third of the earth to save ourselves, and certainly Sabah in
Borneo has a special role to maintain wildlife in better scenario especially
when wildlife is dwindling fast in the degraded natural habitat once the
rainforests.
Many people have given up hope of keeping wildlife
in the natural habitat which is now the home ground for millions of acres for
oil palms –an alien plant – but now things can be looking good as palm oil is
no longer lucrative with low prices largely due to the better productivity in
Kalimantan where prices are much lower.
So such oil palm growers could be exit and prepared to abandon their investment
but we still need much money to restore the rainforests and other endemic plants
including fruit trees.
So the golden opportunity is here with
#EcoGeneration as founded by me recently to obtain massive crowdfunding to get
involved to bring back the wildlife and the rainforest etc to save ourselves as
soon as possible to postpone or mitigate the onslaught of invisible but real
climate change already prevailing in Sabah and the world. #EcoGeneration needs
the support of every living person on earth for our continued existence in the pleasant
climatic environment of my generation post WW2.
Sabah is experiencing for some decades already of maximum temperature of
35°Celcius and the
hours of that is much longer daily (certainly many feel that after deforestation). It is at this temperature that photosynthesis
stops and today we are daily fed with agriculture produces “energised” by inorganic
cheap fertilisers and other chemicals including pesticides to kill ourselves. At the high temperature, cultivation becomes
difficult and even many poultry farms are now in air-conditioned houses hence
more expensive to farmers. Consumers
surely died sooner with higher costs of foods of dubious quality.
You always hear “donate blood to save life” and “donate
organs to save lives”, then why neglect this message “Save the degraded earth
to save ourselves 7 billions in all and not a few lives. Do it in
#EcoGeneration now, and why not?
That is the
real desperate scenario we are in and in the meantime we hope LKP would
consider the survival of the wildlife in captivity there.
So it is most important now in the empirical
picture that we save the degraded earth to save ourselves.
Joshua Y C Kong 13/11/2018
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