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
