Friday, October 21, 2016

Budget 2017: Going Live

…but not in the usual way. I’ll be running around like a headless chicken for most of today (apologies to all headless chickens, by the way), so live bloggin the budget as I’ve done over the last few years won’t be possible.

However, I’ll try to put something up when the budget speech ends, and more importantly, you can catch me on NTV7’s post-budget show at 8pm.

Further analysis by next week (the weekend’s going to be pretty hectic too).

9 comments:

  1. Medium range income earners who pay tax are suffering again with no benefit to them during the hard time.
    See how many percentage of tax payers in total workforce.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. @anon 10.47

      Medium income earners in Malaysia pay no income taxes. Only the top 10% of the workforce pay income taxes.

      Delete
  2. RM100bil for East Coast railway line along Gua Musang – Tumpat
    RM55bil - new East Coast Rail Line project in phases

    What is big spend on this allocation during people's hard time? Something is wrong.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. @anon 10.54

      When times are hard is PRECISELY when government should start spending. Government saving during hard times makes thing worse, not better.

      Delete
  3. Any one can explain that? Why it is so high?

    >>>> Home Ministry allocated RM12.8bil including a sum of RM8.7bil for the Police

    ReplyDelete
  4. Budget 2017 allocates RM260.8bil, but RM100bil + RM55bil for East Coast Railway?
    Near 59% budget allocated for that?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. @anon 11.02

      ECR cost will be over a period of years. It doesn't all get spent in one year.

      Delete
  5. Hisham,

    What's your view on the proposal to increase public servants' housing loans eligibility & the motorcycle loan ceiling? Does the benefits, if any, outweigh the risks?

    If only 1.4 mln Msian pay taxes, how can we call ourselves (on our way to) high income nation?


    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. @anon 2.53

      On civil service loan eligibility, I"m not really in favour. Too many civil servants already drowning in debt.

      On point 2, I don't know if we're particularly unusual at our stage of development. Partly it's due to the fact that so few bother to file tax returns. From my recollection, LHDN only has 6 million accounts, and annual filings is less than half of that. 1.4m taxpayers relative to say 3 million tax filings is around the ballpark ratio for high income countries.

      Delete