KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 23 — The number of medicines zero-rated under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) has been doubled, while the list of zero-rated daily necessities has also been expanded, the prime minister announced today while tabling Budget 2016.
Datuk Seri Najib Razak said the zero-rated list for the broad-based consumption tax would include all controlled medicines under the Schedule Poison A, B, C and D, as well as 95 over-the-counter medicine brands.
“It covers 30 diseases such as cancer, diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease. This doubles the listed medicines from 4,215 to 8,630,” he said when tabling Budget 2016 in Parliament today.
The government budget also plans to expand the zero-rated list of common food items to include among others, soy-based and organic milk for babies and toddlers, dhal, brown sugar, various nuts, lotus fruit water chestnuts, and “specially for the people of Sarawak, dried kolok noodles”.
Other GST-related announcements included the expanding of the Flat Rate Scheme for small-scale farmers from an entry threshold of RM100,000 down to RM50,000.
Budget 2016 also plans to exempt the acquisition of items used for teaching by skills and vocational training providers, the reimporting of items that were exported temporarily for promotional, study or exhibition use, as well as the reimporting of equipment by the oil and gas industry that were temporarily exported for lease or rental.
Critics have said the implementation of the GST last April was too complicated due to a long list of exemptions and zero-rated goods.
