Reconsider effects of increased SST on consumers, says social activist

KUCHING (Jan 4): Social activist Voon Shiak Ni has called on the federal government to reconsider the drawbacks of the implementation of the Sales and Services Tax (SST) set to take effect this March 1.

According to Voon, the increased SST rate from six per cent to eight per cent would definitely fuel the price hike for all goods, including food commodities and add to the financial burden of all consumers.

“Be mindful that the people are now facing the challenges of the weakening ringgit, price hike of food commodities and the continuing inflation.

“Despite not all kinds of services being affected by the tax increase, with the levying of the tax on logistic services, the impact of the increase in tax and its domino effect will affect all services and goods,” she said in a statement.

She said the SST would increase the costs of production and the burden of the increase in costs would be passed to the end consumers.

“The costs of living have been soaring high, and the people’s woes on price hikes are deafening.”

Adding on, Voon said it was disappointing that the people had yet to see any drastic intervention measures from the federal government to curb and reduce the price hike, particularly for food commodities.

Meanwhile, on the concerns of online shoppers, Voon said the public were not in favour of the implementation of more taxes by the government such as the low-value goods tax which came into effect on Jan 1 this year.

In October last year, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim announced the increase of SST from six per cent to eight per cent during the tabling of Budget 2024.