Hot off the press!

Read below for the highlights of Malaysia’s 2009 Budget report!

• Some 100,000 tax payers to be out of the tax net as rebate for taxable income of RM35,000 and below will be increased to RM400 from RM350
• Tax exemption for all interest income for individuals
• Reduction of import duties for consumer durables (examples: blender, rice cooker, microwave oven and electric kettle) to between 5 percent and 30 percent from 10 percent and 60 percent
• Import duty exemption on several food items including vermicelli, biscuits, fruit juices and canned sweet corn
• Road tax for passenger vehicles with diesel engines to be similar with petrol engines effective Sept 1, 2008
• Tax exemption for employees on staff benefits such as subsidised interest on housing, motor vehicles and education loans
• Bills of mobile and fixed line phones as well as internet paid by employers to be tax-exempted
• Government to provide RM3 billion soft loan facility under public transportation to finance acquisition of buses and rail assets to be administered by bank pembangunan malaysia bhd
• 50 percent reduction in toll charges for all buses, except at border entry points, for two years effective Sept 15, 2008
• Efficiency of public transportation to be improved via rm35 billion expenditure from 2009 to 2014
• Farmers to benefit from proposal to abolish import duty on fertilizers and pesticides
• Home ownership among civil servants to be boosted by extension of housing loans tenure to 30 years from 25 years
• Government housing loan insurance panel to be expanded to all eligible insurance companies from only five insurance companies now
• Excise duties on cigarattes up three sen to 18 sen per stick. Duty for 20-stick pack now up 60 sen

Is this a people’s budget that will help our inflation rate and economic problems? What do you think?