In The Minds of Young Malaysians

Everyone in Malaysia should understand the importance of taxation law. Many tax payers tends to avoid tax paying due to their lack of understanding in the law of taxation. The starting point being going back to the basic of Law of taxation – Section 75A : this section defined the liabilities of a director in tax paying.

We need to have firm understanding on the fundamental concepts of Malaysian tax :

• Income tax Vs RPGT (real property gain tax)
• Capital Vs Revenue
• Relationship of income and expenditure – there are many types of expenditure that can be deducted from taxable income aka tax relief.
• Compliance requirement – Corporate and individual are advised to adhere and comply to the law of taxation and to ensure the income tax assessment form to be submitted to IRB within the deadline given.
• Computation of tax payable.

Another are that we should not forget is E-filing – this method will be implemented in year 2007, so one must grab hold on the procedure and requirement of using the E-filing method.

How far can the mainstream media be trusted, vis-à-vis, how far can blogs be trusted? Bloggers who are not professional journalist are they able to apply the code of ethnic whenever they are making comments, or conversation via blogs? Can they able to be self-discipline and social responsible?

Relating to that, there are two famous trends -“The World is Flat” and “The Long Tail” in the blogging world.

Firstly, the “The Flat World” – there are flatteners comprise of Windows, the Internet, workflow software, Open-source software, In-sourcing, Off-shoring (FDI), Supply-chaining (DELL), Google and Wireless communication.

The competitive fields are levelling between industrial economies and emerging markets, the globe have been change. And it’s inevitable, there is no reverse gear while part of the supply-chain becomes a supply-chain itself. It’s less hierarchical, more transparent and less prone to war.

There were three ramifications of Flat world in Malaysia itself:

• The education system &
• The government policy needs to be reformed
• The readers and consumer have changed their attitude in finding the truth & fact.

Meanwhile, there were some comparisons on “Flat world” and “Unflat world” – 3 billion people remained unaffected by the technologies & socio-economic changes. Poverty is the main core for these 3 billion people being in the Unflat world. Their mindset & way of thinking have to be tackled.

On the other hand, “The Long Tail”, as published in Clay Shirky website on February 2003, “Power Laws, Weblogs and Inequality”. A chart comprising a list of 30 blogs in US showned a long tail pattern. The chart implicated that the opportunity to influence reader is basically dominated by the HEAD, which have the capacity to influence the reader, shows the inequality.

In fact, bloggers are changing the economics of the trend of magazine space, by low barrier to entry, easy to author and freely available accounts. The persistent content, discussion in-situ with the comments from the posting and readers, retrievable information, and Open Sources Software, enable everyone to blog easily.

Back in Malaysia, under the leadership of Pak Lah, the window of expression is much wider. In fact, government need our help when come to understand the needs of traditional and new media, whether to manage issues via traditional or internet manner. We are the partners of government, not enemy.

Little people like everyone of us. should contribute a little information.It will be the long tail, with the collective voice, somehow they will be heard.

It is based on the system of Federation. Resposibilities were governed by the 9th Schedule on the distribution of powers between Federal and State Government. For example in Selangor there are 12 Local Councillors in Selangor State. The 12 EXCO members were under the supervision of Menteri Besar and each EXCO was given certain potfolios. It is different in different states.

The State Budget: majority allocations were for Menteri Besar and SUK to decide while the revenue of the state were from the Assessment / Non Tax Revenue. Every year, the budget passed in November and will be tabled for next year.

Below the state machinery is the various districts. The District Office comprises of :Land Committee, Development Committee, Security Committee and Disaster Committee.

A pig breeder in Johor printed on his name card – “Free from beta-agonist”. The moral of the story was that we should adapt ourselves to the changes and challenges of the environment for to survive.

A political party can learn and innovate. How? by its members learning how the public look and perceive the party. Illustrating using the mental models:

Mental Model A: Politics is about “real politics” and Machiavellian Politics (negative perception). It is always a selfish agenda and the party agenda is only for the top leadership. As such, there is no such need to learn and innovate. (Power & Interests = End products)

Mental Model B: “Politics involves development and use of power to make wise decisions (Positive perception) (Power & Interests =Means to realize vision & mission, task and objective)

Learning can take place at few levels i.e. individual, family and society, organization i.e. political party.

In a learning organization, individuals and leaders through various linkages learn e.g. attend training lesson, learn by doing/seeing and embedded learning and existence of knowledge rich environment.

A political party need to learn because it is a source of power through access to capital/people’s power, competency in managing public resources and access to the future.

A knowledge party will help members to become part of knowledgeable society. Members of the party can support government and elected representatives in decision making and support resource deficient grass-root members as well as developing human and intellectual capital.

Some may think innovations and change is getting rid of the existing people or an excuse to axe people. On the other perspective, innovation can also be a positive change for better such as mobilization and conversion of knowledge into creating better products/services.

Therefore, an innovative party should:

• Invest in education and development
• Establish a learning network
• To be in competitive positioning
• To identify the services the party can provide
• Look for strategic alliances
• Define its sphere of influence
• Embrace communication technology