Credit Card Service Tax. wtf.

Being a typical accountant working in the financial industry, i pay much attention to the Budget 2010. Have been following the updates through @limkitsiang live twitter updates (he’s damn good man!).. and my company news update the entire evening.

Lalala.. the usual boring stuff la.. develop the tourism.. education.. infrastructure.. lalala.. how much allocate to this.. how much that.. *yawns* which the general public dont really care anyway. coz the budget allocated wont benefit them, instead those who got those “projects”

Back to what is most important – tax rates, reliefs and direct taxes. Personal & corporate tax reduce by 1 percentage point. Fine, nth great. Personal reliefs increased to RM9k (good) & EPF/ Life Insurance relief increase to RM7k (fine). Go read yourself la.. 49 pages budget speech ok!

Lemme highlight this, sure you wont believe one! To promote prudent spending, a service charge of RM50 a year to be imposed on each principal credit card and charge card; and RM25 a year on each supplementary card, effective from Jan 1, 2010.

Can you read anot?! They are imposing service charge on credit card! wtf.

I cannot believe it lor. RM50 per card per year. @_@

I give you 10 reasons why am i so against this!

1. Basically everyone above the legal age who lives in the city/town holds credit card. Be it principal or supplementary. By introduction the stupid service tax thing, the govt is forcing everyone to pay extra taxes. Where got ppl survive without credit card wan. Credit cards are the bestest invention ever lor.

2. You may argue that people are willing to pay hundreds of credit card annual fee so why not RM50 service tax. I tell you what – those annual fee, if you’re good customer can always ask for waiver. Service tax is mandatory =  no waiver = must pay. Ppl were already burdened by the heavy annual fee and interest charge, now it’s like adding salt to the wound. In another words, it’s forcing again.

3. Promote prudent spending? damn, you’re so “right”. Whats up with those stimulus package? Encouraging ppl to spend? Credit card stimulates the economy! Ppl shop and buy with credit cards, thus stimulating the economy.

4. I love my credit cards during sale. Not a problem if you pay your bill promptly and in full. Different banks has different offers – shopping , holidays & dinning. And seriously you actually save quite a bit with those offers. HSBC is damn good during mega sale, got discount in most shops. Citibank, UOB & HLB got lots of dinning offers. And dont get me started on Rebates & 0% Instalment plans. Now i have to cancel and giving up the offers just to save on stupid service taxes. damn.

5. Trust me, no single person holds one single credit card only. It is definitely more than 1. Besides those various offers (refer #4), you always need another backup. Like what happened during my HK/ Macau trip. My one and only card failed and I have to give ALL my cash to the hotel as deposit. Nearly starve to death in a foreign land lor. When you have more than 1 card, it means more service tax. Stupid one.

6. On average, a person will hold credit cards from at least 2 different banks. And from each bank, they have visa & master. Like my case, I have 7 cards. Yeah, 7, seven. 2 supplementary from dad, 2 from HSBC (like i said, i heart HSBC during sales), another AMEX from MBB (only they have AMEX and AMEX gives great travelling privilege), 2 from Public which they conned me into getting them. BUT! only 2 of these are active card! Do the maths la – 6 x RM50, that’s RM300 per year

7. So much about promoting cashless society. Then why the govt are punishing ppl who uses technology and who pay promptly (read: me). Haih.. you get my point right. No energy to argue liao.

8. According to statistic, there’s 11 million cards in circulation as at August 2009. I think the Msian Govt no money already. The money collected from these 11 million cards will get to feed those _____ (insert own words) in Putrajaya.

9. Credit card agents! Their life cukup susah already, camp in shopping malls & petrol stations to get customer. No doubt they can be quite annoying sometimes, they are working real hard to earn money! Summore their basic pay is very low. If everyone cuts down on cards, they eat what to survive?

10. And BANKS! X% of the retail banking is the credit card business. and I cant imagine what’s next for them…

There you go. Enough of facts to support my stand. I just find this whole thing stupid and totally unbelievable.

I rest my case. Period.