Adapted and edited from: The Coverage Media's post
T20 Is Not Your Personal ATM – Stop Treating Them As Cash Cows
Before reaching deeper into T20 pockets, the government should return the RM 33.3 billion in overpaid taxes to the T20.
T20 Are Willing to Fund the Nation — But Not Your Publicity Stunts
T20 Malaysians are not against contributing to the country.
They are willing to pay more if the money goes to critical areas such as healthcare, hospitals, doctors, and nurses.
What they will not accept is being treated as your personal ATM to finance vanity projects, publicity stunts, and mismanagement.
It is not okay to punish them every time the government runs out of money because of reckless spending and poor financial management.
Before spending on any unnecessary project, think twice.
Do not squander billions on prestige projects and image-building exercises, only to return later and squeeze the T20 even harder to cover up your own failures.
The T20 segment—Malaysia's highest-income earners—is not an unlimited cash machine for the government to plunder whenever fiscal deficits arise.
Whenever the administration finds itself short of funds, the reflexive response is the same: remove subsidies for the T20, raise taxes, and invent new levies to squeeze them further.
The T20 already contribute up to 85% of total tax revenue.
Before targeting their subsidies, the government must first demonstrate fiscal discipline by slashing its own unnecessary expenditures.
On one hand, the government claims there is "not enough money."
On the other, it spends with abandon.
The reconstruction of Ca---sa Seri Negara at a reported cost of up to RM 600 million.
The Kota M---ni project, estimated at RM 4 billion.
The Sara initiative (RM 2 billion), widely perceived as an attention-seeking publicity stunt.
Ongoing M---ni Mart events pushed by Minister F---ah S---h.
The B----net contract worth up to RM 3.2 billion, despite the existence of in-house developed systems.
Proliferation of billboards funded by ministry budgets under R---nan.
Lavish international humanitarian donations funded by Malaysian taxpayers.
These are not essential expenditures.
If citizens must tighten their belts, the government should first trim its own bloated operations.
A good start would be reducing the oversized cabinet filled with redundant ministries and overlapping functions.
Revoking excessive MP petrol allowances, aggressively tackling the estimated RM 122 billion in annual leakages and corruption within the civil service, and ending crony-protective policies in the EV sector would also deliver meaningful savings.
The fuel subsidy bill continues to balloon, yet the government makes it harder for Malaysians to switch to electric vehicles.
Protectionist policies shielding local cronies keep high-quality EVs expensive.
The RM100,000, RM200,000 and RM300,000 minimum EV price policy is severely slowing down EV adoption in Malaysia.
One month of fuel subsidies (approximately RM 5 billion) could fund the construction of around 24,000 highway-grade DC fast chargers or over 600,000 AC wallboxes.
Critics often label the T20 as selfish for resisting further burden-sharing.
This accusation rings hollow. How much more can reasonably be extracted from a group already paying the vast majority of taxes?
Many in the T20 are prepared to contribute more—if the money genuinely improves critical public services such as healthcare, hospitals, doctors, and nurses.
Yet the government has simultaneously wasted billions on vanity projects and cut RM 3.1 billion from the Health Ministry budget.
This is not equitable burden-sharing; it is mismanagement.
Before any further subsidy rationalisation, the government owes Malaysians clear definitions.
What exactly constitutes T20, T15, T10, or T5?
Is it based on individual income, household income, disposable income after deductions, geographic location, or cost of living?
Without transparent, fair criteria, these labels become arbitrary tools for selective punishment rather than sound policy instruments.
Most importantly, the administration should remember its own political reality.
A significant portion of its support base comes from the T20 and M40 brackets—the very groups now facing repeated squeezes.
These are the productive middle and upper-middle classes who helped bring the current government to power.
Punishing them after the fact is not just bad economics; it is poor politics and a betrayal of those who trusted in reform.
Malaysia does not lack revenue—it lacks prudent management.
Before reaching deeper into the pockets of the T20, the government must:
- Ruthlessly cut waste, leakages, and prestige projects.
- Streamline the civil service and cabinet.
- Reform subsidies with transparent targeting.
- Prioritise healthcare and essential services over publicity stunts.
