Over-Generous Taxpayers or Defective Calculators?

The Income Revenue Board (IRB) in Malaysia has announced that they have in excess of RM4 billion of tax revenue that shall be returned to 380,000 taxpayers this year.

The way the tax system works here for wage earners is that IRB automatically takes an estimated cut of their salaries every payday until the end of the financial year. After some serious number crunching and nipping a little interest from the coffers, IRB calculates the actual difference. Depending on the calculations, a taxpayer may have to give the difference to the authority or receive a refund around this time of the year.

Now, applying the classic principle of 90/10, this is how much an average taxpayer is getting back this year:

(0.1 * RM4,000,000,000) / (0.9 * 380,000) = RM1169.59

What do you know... I'm getting even less than the average!

Something must be wrong with their calculations. Perhaps they need the extra revenue for more accurate floating point calculators? ;)

Check out these links for some good reading, especially the Wikipedia one which has more links.

Links:

Too Much - A First-Ever Look at Wealth in the World
<URL:http://www.cipa-apex.org/toomuch/articlenew2006/Dec7a.html>

Wikipedia - Income disparity
<URL:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_disparity>

Technorati Tags: income tax, taxpayer, malaysia tax, salary, income disparity, wealth distribution, income revenue board

How You Deal With Differences

I chanced upon a local wind of discussion about the strong views of a Malaysian blogger, MENJ. He is a young man studying in a local college with very polarized opinions on several issues, including the differences between religions, gender and political figures.

<URL:http://blog.menj.org/2006/05/17/the-christian-conundrum/>

During my teenage years, I thought about the single thing that caused the world so much death, destruction, pain, wars, losses, and general discomfort. In my Christian teachings, I know that it is humankind's sins. Our first parents, Adam and Eve, committed the ultimate sin, which is to the desire to be God.

My personal theory of the cause is: difference.

Humans are blessed (but often misuse) with the power to think, to rationalize, judge, opinionate, and react. No other living thing has this much complex processing ability. Over the course of human history, we see that wars, arguments, and crime are all caused by differences.

• One man felt that Jews should be wiped out.
• The wife thinks that the husband is too lazy to do any useful work at home, but the husband thinks that he has been working too hard to provide for the wife.
• I don't have that flashy and expensive mobile phone that you're carrying, and I want to take yours.

The case of this young Malaysian writing and exerting a lot of his views on a wide scale is disturbing, to say the least. He has proven that he has been judgmental of the current Prime Minister's wife, women in general, and Christians. Several bloggers have been highlighting the potential dangers that this man can incite and personally execute.

There have been lessons in history that show us how much destruction one man can cause, if his consistent actions are not kept in check by authorities. Authorities as in, parents, social groups, and the government. Remember the Germany, Vietnam, Somalia, and most recently, Iraq.

My stand is that if you believe or oppose something fervently, keep it to yourself. The human race, and many other smaller scale groups, works best as a united and cooperating lot. We already fare very badly at managing ourselves (check with your ultimate authority, whether it is God, Allah, Buddha, human government, etc.), and we can't survive long if we have people who do not respect one another's differences.

Come on, it's already difficult enough to make a living and live a happy life.

Technorati Tags: menj, malaysia, blog, difference, discrimination, religion, sexism, danger, government, belief, respect, muslim, christian