Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng speaking at a press conference after Budget 2020 Forum today. – Bernama photo
KUALA LUMPUR: The 2020 Budget’s revenue projections have been stress-tested, Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng said.
He said the government has kept the budget within the projections for the last two years and it is able to maintain that for next year.
“If they’re any contingencies, of course, we will do the necessary revisions but for the moment — no! It is very stress-tested,” he told reporters at the Budget 2020 Forum, here today.
In his budget speech last week, Lim said in the event of the continued worse-than-expected external environment, the government stands ready to step in with contingency measures to provide further support or stimulus to growth.
In the Economic Outlook 2020, the Ministry of Finance (MoF) said the federal government’s revenue is projected to decline by 7.1 per cent to RM244.5 billion in 2020.
“However, after excluding the one-off special dividend from Petronas in the 2019 revised estimates, the revenue is forecast to increase 4.8 per cent,” it added.
Tax revenue will remain the major contributor to the federal government’s revenue in 2020 with an expected total collection of RM189.9 billion.
The MoF said tax revenue as a percentage of gross domestic products (GDP) is forecast to remain stable at 11.8 per cent, while the collection from the direct tax is estimated to grow by 5.2 per cent to RM142.7 billion, constituting 75.1 per cent of total tax revenue.
The bulk of the increase is primarily attributed to better collection of taxes on corporate income and individual income at RM75.5 billion and RM37.4 billion, respectively. – Bernama