KUALA LUMPUR: Putrajaya has to come clean and review its revenue projection now that the 2021 budget has been passed, a PKR member of Parliament said.
Saying that the time to “save face” was now over, Wong Chen (PH-Subang) insisted that the issue was no longer about politics and that projections had to be reviewed to reflect the true situation.
He questioned how Putrajaya planned to collect more revenue through income and corporate taxes next year compared with 2019 when businesses and individuals were still reeling from the economic impact due to the Covid-19 pandemic and various restrictions.
“It doesn’t make sense at all that Putrajaya expects to get more revenue in 2021 than in 2019 when there’s Covid-19. We don’t even know if we’ll have enough supply of the (Covid-19) vaccine,” he said when debating the second reading of the Finance Bill 2020 in the Dewan Rakyat today.
In tabling the 2021 budget last month, Finance Minister Tengku Zafrul Aziz said the government expects RM64.60 billion in tax revenue next year, nearly a billion ringgit more than the amount collected in 2019.
Zafrul added that the government also expected RM42.4 billion in personal income tax collection, compared with RM35.9 billion in 2020 and RM38.7 billion in 2019.
“The government has already won the vote yesterday, so now is not the time to ‘save face’. For the sake of the country, please recalibrate these projections,” Wong Chen said, adding that wrong projections could force Putrajaya to issue more bonds.
Deputy Finance Minister Shahar Abdullah replied that the issue had already been addressed by the finance minister during the second reading of the budget, adding that the projections were made based on factual indicators.
“Our nation is among those with the 20% highest GDP growth globally and this is an indicator that gives us a wider view (into our economic performance next year).
“We wouldn’t have done an expansionary budget if we were not confident about our economic performance in the future,” he said.
Shahar then invited Wong Chen to discuss his concerns over the tax revenue projections with the finance minister, which the Subang MP accepted.