TASEK GELUGOR: Pakatan Harapan will maintain the implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) if comes into power in the 14th General Election.
PKR vice-president Nurul Izzah Anwar however said the opposition coalition will not continue with the current percentage.
"We are concerned with the hardship faced by the people. We realise and know that the people can't be treated like now. There must be some kind of consideration.
"As such, Pakatan Harapan, under Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, will not continue with the high charge of GST," she said in her speech at the "Bicara Tun M - Selamatkan Malaysia" programme held here last night.
Dr Mahathir, who is Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (PPBM) chairman, was the guest-of-honour at the event organised by the Penang PPBM.
Also present was his wife Tun Dr Siti Hasmah Ali.
Speaking at a press conference later, Nurul Izzah said Pakatan Harapan had decided on the matter when they came out with their alternative budget.
"Zero-rated was the term we had used.
"Of course you have to also understand that a mechanism has been put in place. In terms of our position, it is similar and we also have to adjust with the mechanism which has been implemented.
"We are doing something pragmatic in line with our pledges, not commerce," she added.
The latest comment marks an about turn by Pakatan Harapan, which had previously stressed that it would remove the GST if it were to take over Putrajaya.
The opposition coalition had even organised an anti-GST rally in KL last April.
As recent as January this year, DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng was quoted as saying that the opposition would scrap the GST, and toll collections on the North-South Expressway, if it were to assume control of the federal government.
Opposition leader Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail had in 2015 also proposed that the coalition would propose to abolish the GST in its alternative budget for 2016.
Dr Mahathir, at PPBM's launch early this year, had also declared that should the opposition win the general election, the GST would be abolished gradually and replaced with a sales tax "according to the people's will."
The GST, which took effect on April 1, 2015, is currently fixed at six per cent. It replaced the Sales and Services Tax (SST) of up to 10 per cent.