COMMENT | Enflaming brewery donations par for the course for PAS

COMMENT | The federal government collected RM4.5 billion from gambling taxes between May 2018 and September 2019.

These figures were not picked from thin air. Then Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng said in a written parliamentary reply that the sin tax — imposed on tobacco, alcohol, and gambling — was also collected from tobacco products worth RM4.4 billion and RM3.6 billion from alcohol sales.

Two months later, the Pakatan Harapan government fell, and the backdoor government was in place, but the sin tax remained a hot potato as there were some religious bigots on the front bench.

In November 2021, when current Human Resources Minister Steven Sim Chee Keong was then sitting in the opposition bench as the Bukit Mertajam MP, asked:

“Does the government plan to separate the tax revenue from alcohol and gambling – known as the sin tax – from the consolidated fund to be used for the development of non-Muslims?”

Such a question arose after the PAS-led Kedah state government...