Tax Money And A Woman's Potential Misuse

Chart By Malaysiakini

Aren't we all surprised to see that government is no longer paying subsidy money for petrol since 1st of the month? And do most of you know the fact is that 40% of a liter goes as tax paying money? Shahrir Samad today let loose of the breakdown of how a price of a liter of petrol goes.

Assuming that a liter is at $1.92:

1. 12 cents goes to a petrol station operator.
2. 19 cents goes to the petrol company.

Fine, that's okay and there's the remaining $1.61. Out of that 64 cents is tax money which leaves the balance at 97 cents. So if I am to buy 40 liters of petrol per week, I'm paying $25.60 per week as tax. That is almost one month of my tax contribution, except I'm paying quadruple, of $103 per month.

And what's the point of paying a lot if the government is noted by many people to misuse tax money, the money I paid to the government for some wrong activities like police going at the wrong end, paying compensations to failed projects, for some lavish vacations as part of government trips and etc? That's indeed using for the wrong end.

Also look at other taxes that we paid as part of the cost. I go watch a movie, I pay 25% of entertainment tax, a company pays 25 percent corporate tax per year, an employee pays 15% income tax, misc taxes and what else? I thought it's to help development but it's being misused badly already. Given of this situation maybe it's time people start paying less by telling them in the face 'not all unless you do exactly as I say because I put you there'.

Maybe I think the revised amount of tax we should pay is:

1. Corporate - 20 percent.
2. Income - 12 percent. It's better than reducing it in EPF.
3. Entertainment - 10 percent - Azalina and the relevant ministers should consider it.
4. Service tax - 7 percent from 10.
5. Petrol - 20 percent or another 30 cent subsidy. Both have the same effect.

Back to petrol I think the price could go lower. If we based on the current price of $2:

1. 31 cents goes to operators and petrol company
2. 68 cents goes to government
3. $1.01 is the fuel price.

Therefore, we should be paying approximately RM 1.67 per liter instead of RM 2. Which is at the August 2005 price, considering that petrol tax is half. I feel we have been asked to pay more but we get less back. People are angry that although they pay tax, the get things less worthy for the money they paid.

Case in point: There is a buzz around cyberspace that Rosmah, although accompanying Najib to Peru for the economic summit might not be staying in Peru but instead will head to Washington first and Najib will meet her there two days later to spend 5 days there. You bet that there will be lavish spending of many things - hotels, cars, and, etc from tax payers money and if converted to ringgit that is going to cost more than a million ringgit for every $300K USD spend in that week.

I started to question myself whether I should pay only half of the tax payer money to show I'm not happy with how people's money is used by the BN government. You don't have to spend a lot of money to get the same quality as if you would buy at somewhere else at a half-price, don't you?