Tax exemption, holidays

KUALA LUMPUR: Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak announced three good news for Malaysians if the Barisan Nasional (BN) is returned the mandate in the 14th general election (GE14) today.

The Prime Minister announced that youths aged 26 and below will be given tax exemption for year of assessment 2017 and subsequent years with immediate effect.

He said this meant that for income tax already paid by those in the age bracket, it will be refunded to them.

"I know young people need enough money, like for buying cars, renting a house, other expenses, give some to their parents. As a caring government, for the first time in the country's history, those aged 26 and below need not pay income tax,” he said in a special message that was broadcast live on television stations last night.

Speaking in front of a wooden house built by his late father Tun Abdul Razak Hussein in Pekan, Pahang, Najib also announced that occasional public holiday of two consecutive days, on May 14 and 15 (next Monday and Tuesday) will be given. Tun Abdul Razak was also Malaysia's second prime minister.

For states having Friday and Saturday as the weekend, the public holidays will be on Sunday and Monday (May 13 and 14).

Najib said Malaysians can use the extra holiday to spend time with their families or prepare for Ramadan.

In addition, Najib said for Hari Raya this year, Malaysians will not have to pay for toll charges for five days.

"Toll charges will not have to be paid two days before Hari Raya for those that will go back to their hometowns, and on the first, second, and third day of Hari Raya," he said.

Some 14,449,200 of the total 14,940,624 electors are eligible to vote between 8 am and 5 pm today in the 14th general election. The rest of the electors are absentee voters, postal voters or early voters.

A total of 2,333 people have filed nomination papers to contest 222 parliamentary and 505 state seats in this general election. On Nomination Day, the Barisan Nasional won the Rantau state seat in Negeri Sembilan unopposed.

For polling today, the Election Commission has made available 8,253 polling stations with 28,115 polling streams.

The cost of conducting the 14th general election is RM500 million.

To conduct the general election, the EC has appointed 222 returning officers and 259,391 election staff.

The EC expects the first of the election results to be known as early as 9 pm today.

Parliament was dissolved on April 7 to pave the way for the 14th general election, which has been described as the ‘father of all elections' that is seeing the main contest between the Umno-led BN and the DAP-dominated Pakatan Harapan.

EC chairman Tan Sri Mohd Hashim Abdullah has advised electors to come out early to vote because rain has been forecast for today.

He advised electors to verify their polling station and polling stream through the MySPR Semak application or at the spr.gov.my website or by sending an SMS to 15888 by typing SPRSEMAK and inserting their MyKad number or by contacting 03-88927018.