By Syauqi Jamil
KUALA LUMPUR: Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng today revealed that a whopping amount of roughly RM18 billion were missing from a Goods and Services Tax (GST) Repayment Fund.
He said as based on the Customs Department record, as of May 31, 2018, the sum of overdue GST refund currently sits at RM19.4 billion.
However, Lim stated that the current balance in the Repayment Fund is only around RM1.5 billion.
He said the funds were supposed to be deposited by the government, but told the Dewan Rakyat that the previous Barisan Nasional (BN) government had ‘robbed the rakyat of their money’.
The Bagan lawmaker explained that BN administration had commited account forgery as well as misappropriation of tax refund.
“This huge repayment amount which was overdue for more than two years happened not only because the guidelines weren’t adhered to but can be considered as an attempt by the previous government to misuse the money.”
“BN government had robbed the trust fund when they deposited GST collections directly into a consolidated fund for them to use as revenue,” said Lim.
During his speech before the Parliament had the second reading of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) (Repeal) Bill 2018, Lim said that based on the model used, the government was to return a sum of the tax collection to avoid tax overlapping.
He said the refund which is called an ‘input tax’ can be claimed by manufacturer, producer or even merchant.
It needs to be refunded within 14 days after claims are made, which according to Lim was not done by the BN government.
Yesterday, Lim had made the same claim during his winding up speech for the Sales Tax Bill 2018.
He asked BN Rembau MP Khairy Jamaluddin if the latter is aware of the matter which lead Khairy to ask for proof to back such accusations.
Lim retorted by saying that the evidence would be brought up today in the Dewan Rakyat.
