THE Malaysian Employers Federation (MEF) welcomed the Budget 2014 announcement today as many of the Federation’s proposals and recommendations were considered by the Government.
MEF Council Member Y.Bhg. Tan Sri Dato’ Dr Mohd Noor Ismail referred to the proposals on the private retirement scheme (PRS), entrepreneurship training, and efforts to make the PCB as the final tax as positive initiatives.
“We are also very pleased that the Government has granted SMEs additional tax relief with respect to differences paid in in terms of the basic wages to the minimum wages of RM900 in Peninsular Malaysia and RM800 for Sabah and Sarawak from 1 January 2014 to 31 December 2014. However, MEF is of the view that the tax relief should have been extended to cover all employers and be effected from 2013,” said Tan Sri Mohd Noor today.
Also present at the press conference, which was held at the MEF Secretariat in Petaling Jaya, were MEF Council Member Dr. Michael Chiam Tow Hui and Executive Director Tn. Hj. Shamsuddin Bardan.
“MEF is also positive on the retention strategies put in place in terms of providing training incentives, especially the RM450 million to the Skills Development Fund for upskilling and reskilling, as the issue of migration of professionals is quite substantive. Currently, there are about 700,000 Malaysians working overseas.
“For that matter, the reduction of individual tax will also help retain talents while the reduction in corporate tax brought comfort to many employers, especially the SMEs, and also made our country more competitive in terms of attracting FDI.”
Tan Sri Mohd Noor also commented on the government’s proposal to promote flexible work arrangement including flexi-hours, compressed work week and weekend work as encouraging especially in terms of increasing the participation of women in the workplace whilst maintaining productivity target.
“MEF has been calling for more flexible work arrangements for many years and this would definitely be beneficial, especially in terms of attracting more women to participate in the labour force.
On the GST, he said for its successful implementation there needs to be very high level of integrity.
“We must ensure that our retailers are happy to collect and remit the GST. Currently, there are a lot of leakages. It is very important to build up integrity and to do this in 17 months may not be enough because building integrity is a long term process,” he said.
“Notwithstanding, setting the GST rate at 6% is perhaps too high for starters.”
Tan Sri Mohd Noor, who is also the President of the Malayan Agricultural Producers’ Association (MAPA), said he was very pleased that the Government allocated RM6 billion to the agricultural sector and also incentives to research institutions for the publication of research papers in international journals.
For further information, please contact the MEF Secretariat at 03-7955-7778 or fax 03-7955-9008.