Executive Director of Tax Advisory and Management Services Sdn Bhd Yong Poh Chye said consumers can make a comparative study on prices of related items affected by the GST, once the shopper’s guide with about 1,000 consumer items is published by year-end.
“With the shopper’s guide, you know what (consumer item) price is going up or down (after the implementation of GST).
“If the price should drop, but the shopkeeper charges higher, you can make an appeal to the monitoring committee,” he said in his presentation on “Impact of GST on Suppliers and Customers” at the two-day National GST Conference 2014 which ended here today.
The government has established the GST Monitoring Committee to ensure the smooth implementation of the tax system in the country.
The Finance Ministry had said the committee is responsible for ensuring policies, laws and guidelines pertaining to the GST are ready, while monitoring the readiness for its implementation by government agencies and industries.
According to Yong, the government will recruit 472 new staff to enforce activities related to the GST in 222 parliamentary constituencies with each having enforcement officers monitoring more than 10,000 products.
Meanwhile, Yong said the Finance ministry had conducted a price impact study to see the effect of the GST implementation on 729 types of consumer goods and services from 95 industries.
He said based on the study, only 10.6 per cent or 73 items will see increases, while 287 items (41.65 per cent) will decrease, with the price of 329 items (47.75 per cent) remaining unchanged.
— BERNAMA
