We'll discuss GST but not this year, says Zafrul

The government is not ruling out any consideration of a return of the goods and services tax (GST), more than four years after it was abolished as part of Pakatan Harapan's (PH) election manifesto pledge. 

However, Finance Minister Tengku Zafrul Aziz said any discussion on the consumption tax would depend on the state of the economy.

"For this year, we are not discussing it for this budget," he told the press after presenting the 2023 Budget today.

In June 2018, the PH government announced that the 6% GST would be zero-rated.

It was replaced by sales and services tax in September 2018.

Jailed former prime minister Najib Razak, who introduced the GST in 2015, defended the tax last year, saying it had ensured transparency and reduced leakage worth hundreds of billions of dollars, in addition to closing the income gap between the rich and the poor.