yOuR MeAT mY PoIsoN

The 2006 Budget will be announced by the Prime Minister this Friday 30.09.2005. There’s nothing much to look forward to unless you are a government servant. Smokers (and drinkers) will be hard hit by the budget because of the so-called sin-tax. So we smokers better stock up a few cartons of cigarettes before that fateful day. They won't last you a lifetime but at least they can see you through a few days of anger.

Don’t want to get much into this. Just brace yourself to pay the wrong side of RM7.00 for a pack of premium cigarettes. A “reliable” source cited 8 as the lucky number. It’s been the government’s trend to increase taxes for items that cater to sinful habits/doings since as long as I can remember, citing “legitimate” and politically correct reasons such as “smoking is bad for your health” and bla bla bla.

Yeah! Indeed smoking kills, but in no certain ways increasing taxes will make (stubborn) people (like me) quit smoking. It’s an open secret, the urging power to smoke is greater than the thought of forking out a few extra ringgits for a pack of cigarette. The result: more money into the Government’s coffer and the number of smokers is bigger than that of last year.

Some friends of mine will not hesitate to sub-ordinate more important purchases to purchasing a pack of cigarettes. They are willing to reduce spending on other household items just to cater to their smoking habit. Hopefully they don’t cut spending on toiletries!

I may sound self-serving but, yeah.. what the heck!. Soon the government servants will enjoy their undeserved 2-month salary bonus. So where do you think they get all the money from? A big portion of the fund for it is taken from the pockets of millions of smokers like me.

Why can’t they just eat their humble pie and tell us straight-faced “We need the money to give bonuses to our servants, and remember the reduction in road-tax last month? We are making up for the loss of revenue from this”. And that will be much better than throwing at us an orange and telling us it’s an apple.