FMM In The News: NEW STRAITS TIMES, KUALA LUMPUR, Tuesday, September 6, 2022 - The Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers (FMM) believes that the Goods and Services Tax (GST) is a more transparent and effective tax regime, compared with the Sales and Services Tax (SST).

FMM president Tan Sri Soh Thian Lai said the government, however, must come up with improvements to make the tax more consumer and business friendly, including reducing the GST rate to at least four per cent.

"Based on our FMM-MIER Business Conditions Survey for the first half of 2022 (1H2022), close to three quarters (74 per cent) of respondents are in favour of the GST.  

"Among them, 49.1 per cent opined they will need a period of six months for the transition back to GST.   

"Another 34.8 per cent believe they will need 12 months and 9.9 per cent require 18 months," he said during a media briefing in conjunction with the FMM-MIER Business Conditions Survey 1H2022 released today.  

Soh said the survey was a bi-annual collaboration between FMM and the Malaysian Institute of Economic Research (MIER). It involved polling 794 respondents nationwide from July 9 to Aug 12, 2022.  

Soh said another 26 per cent of the respondents, however, did not support the GST.   

"The reasons, among other things, include having a cost impact on consumers, and burdensome paperwork, documentation and claim process that the tax entails," he noted. 

In June this year, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob said the government was keen on re-introducing the GST, which was implemented in 2015 but scrapped three years later. 

He said the matter would be discussed further in cabinet meetings and further studies would be conducted.