Hanya 28% rakyat Malaysia sokong GST...

62% rakyat Malaysia tidak menyokong GST...

Badan penyelidik bebas, Merdeka Center mendedahkan sebanyak 62% rakyat Malaysia tidak menyokong pelaksanaan cukai kontroversi Cukai Barangan dan Perkhidmatan (GST).

Kaji selidik melibatkan seramai 1,009 orang itu dibuat pada bulan lepas, malahan 33% daripada responden tidak memahami mengenai GST.

Semalam, kira-kira hampir 20 ribu orang berhimpun secara aman di Dataran Merdeka untuk membantah pelaksanaan cukai tersebut oleh Putrajaya yang akan berkuatkuasa 1 April, 2015.‎

"62% responden tidak bersetuju dengan pelaksanaan GST, jelas menunjukkan walaupun hasil yang akan diperoleh daripada cukai pengguna tersebut, kebanyakan orang awam tidak menyokong pelaksanaannya," kata penyelidik bebas itu.

Selari dengan kaji selidik tersebut, sebanyak 64% responden berkata mereka tidak faham bagaimana ekonomi negara akan bergerak.

"Pandangan tersebut lazimnya datang daripada isi rumah yang berpendapatan rendah, sekitar kawasan pedalaman dan di kalangan wanita," kata Merdeka Center.

Kaji selidik tersebut dijalankan oleh Merdeka Center sekitar 12 hingga 21 April.

62% rakyat Malaysia tolak sistem cukai GST...

Daripada kaji selidik itu, 1,009 responden yang juga pengundi  adalah 60% Melayu, 31% Cina dan 9% India serta dijalankan menerusi panggilan telefon.

Responden dipilih berdasarkan persampelan rawak berlapis bersama-sama etnik, jantina dan negeri didiami.

Responden juga ditanya sama ada GST adalah sistem cukai yang adil dan 40% memberi jawapan negatif.

Kaji selidik itu juga melibatkan jumlah responden yang sama rata antara lelaki dan wanita dari kawasan pedalaman dan bandar mendapati 45% mengatakan GST tidak adil.

Lebih memburukkan, seramai responden 46% tidak yakin Barisan Nasional (BN) mampu menangani ekonomi sehingga 2020, sekaligus menjejaskan imej Perdana Menteri Datuk Seri Najib Razak.

Bagaimanapun, kaji selidik mendedahkan responden kaum Cina juga tidak yakin dengan kemampuan Putrajaya untuk memacu ekonomi negara.

Sebanyak 73% daripada responden kaum Cina dan 45% responden Melayu mempersoalkan cara Putrajaya mengendalikan ekonomi Malaysia.

Walaupun dengan pengenalan GST tahun depan, 51% daripada responden berkata mereka tidak yakin Putrajaya akan dapat mengendalikan ekonomi negara dan memulihkan defisit fiskal.

Hanya 38% daripada 1,009 responden menyatakan mereka mempunyai keyakinan ke atas pentadbiran Najib dapat menangani ekonomi Malaysia dan defisit fiskal.

Di samping itu, 52% daripada responden berasa Malaysia tidak akan dapat mencapai status negara maju dalam masa enam tahun, seperti yang disasarkan oleh Putrajaya.

Bagaimanapun, 41% responden berpendapat negara akan mencapai status negara maju menjelang 2020. 

Yang mengejutkan adalah kebanyakan yang tidak bersetuju dengan kadar percukaian baru itu bukannya pelajar atau pengganggur sebaliknya peniaga.

Kajian itu menunjukkan peratusan paling tinggi yang tidak bersetuju dengan GST - 68 peratus - bekerja sendiri.

Ini berlaku walaupun kerajaan membelanjakan jutaan ringgit untuk perisian membantu memudahkan proses pengutipan GST.

Kajian itu turut mendedahkan 53 peratus dari penjawat awam dan pekerja di syarikat berkaitan kerajaan menolak GST.– tmi/mk

62% of Malaysians not in favour of GST...

Merdeka Centre said today that 62 percent of Malaysians surveyed have rejected the Goods and Services Tax (GST) despite the government's decades-long planning and recent publicity campaign on its benefits.

The survey of 1,009 registered voters adhering to the country's ethnic composition, also revealed that one in two did not understand what GST was all about.

An even larger proportion - 64 percent of those surveyed from Apr 12 to Apr 21 - had no clue how the economy works.

"This view was more prevalent among respondents coming from lower income households, rural areas and among women," the survey released by Merdeka Centre for Opinion Research said.

The independent pollster noted that as much as 39 percent said they "strongly disagreed" with GST. Some of them were probably at the May 1 rally in Kuala Lumpur yesterday, where over 50,000 people thronged Dataran Merdeka and staged a peaceful, albeit short sit-in protest.

Surprisingly, it was not students and the unemployed who dreaded the new tax the most but businesses.

The survey noted that the highest proportion of those who disagreed with GST, 68 percent were self-employed.
This is despite the government spending millions on software to help ease the process of collecting GST.

The survey also revealed that even among civil servants and employees of government-linked corporations, 53 percent also rejected GST. The government today threatened to sack civil servants who took part in yesterday's anti-GST rally as it went against the government's aspirations.

The survey interviewed Malays, Chinese and Indian Malaysians over the phone.

It found that Malays had the lowest understanding of GST, with 62 percent - more than the overall 53 percent mark -  saying that they didn't really understand the GST.

The reverse was true for Indians surveyed, with 65 percent agreeing that they understood the tax, which would start at six percent from April 2015.

A new GST bill was passed in Parliament last month.

Prior to that, the government had first introduced a GST bill in 2009 but subsequently withdrew it a year later due to protests and then spent more years educating the people about the tax.

Poorest have least understanding

Even though the GST was expected to hit the poor hardest and the government has promised to handout cash through Bantuan Rakyat1Malaysia (BR1M) to help, the survey found that the poorest still understood the least about the consumption tax.

Merdeka Centre said that nearly three-quarters of households earning less than RM1,500 a month did not understand GST and the same proportion said they didn't have follow the national economy at all.

Promoters of the GST have said that it is bitter medicine but it was for the long term health of the Malaysian economy.

It would help cure a huge national debt accumulated by the BN government, which has also spent more than it has collected over the last 15 years. The government expected to earn over RM3 billion more a year from GST.

But the Merdeka Centre survey also showed that most people didn't know this too.

The survey said that 59 percent of Malaysians did not know what was the "government fiscal deficit issue" being talked about. Only four percent could say they knew a great deal about such issues.

Unsurprisingly, almost all the Chinese respondents indicated their lack of faith in Putrajaya's skills in steering the country's economy.

Some 73% of Chinese respondents and 45% of Malay respondents questioned Putrajaya's handling of Malaysia's economy.

Even with the introduction of the GST next year, 51% of respondents said they were not confident that Putrajaya would be able to handle the country's economy and fiscal deficit.

Only 38% of the 1,009 respondents indicated that they had confidence that Najib's administration would be able to tackle Malaysia's economy and fiscal deficit issues.

In addition, 52% of the respondents felt Malaysia would not be able to attain developed nation status in six years’ time, as projected by Putrajaya.

However, 41% of the respondents felt that the nation would reach developed nation status by 2020. – mk/tmi