You know it was coming. After months of free Avatar clothes, Mircosoft has unleashed the Avatar Marketplace, which you can purchase non-existent digital items for your completely non-existent digital self.
Maybe for a quarter or two this stuff would be reasonable, but to buy all of it (132 items), it will cost you a massive $309. That’s 24,720 MS Points for those that don’t want to do the math. For instance, what will $5 get you on the Marketplace? A lightsaber. Yeah, that’s it. Whoever priced this stuff is obviously off their rocker, and the whoever buys it even more so. People, you do not need an Adidas shirt for your Avatar. Really.
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Corporate tax rate still competitive, says MOF, BUSINESS TIMES
Business Times (Malaysia) October 24, 2001 | Adeline Paul Raj Adeline Paul Raj Business Times (Malaysia) 10-24-2001 MALAYSIA’S corporate tax rate at 28 per cent is still competitive when compared to effective tax rates elsewhere in the region, said the Ministry of Finance (MOF).
The MOF’s head of the tax analysis division, Kamariah Hussain, in a briefing to representatives of the tax industry yesterday, said it was unfair to compare it with Hong Kong’s effective tax rate of 16 per cent, for example, given that the latter does not provide as many tax incentives as Malaysia does. website corporate tax rate
Singapore has an effective tax rate of 24.5 per cent, while in countries such as Thailand, Japan and Taiwan, the rates are much higher as a dividend tax is also imposed.
In Taiwan, for instance, the corporate tax rate is 25 per cent but a 30 per cent dividend tax also kicks in, resulting in an effective tax rate of 47.5 per cent. Likewise, Thailand and Japan have an effective tax rate of 37 per cent and 51 per cent, respectively. website corporate tax rate
Kamariah was rationalizing the Government’s decision not to reduce corporate tax rates – a move which turned out to be one of the biggest surprises in the recent tabling of Budget 2002 seeing as expectations were running high that the rate would be cut by at least one percentage point.
A one per cent point reduction in the tax rate would have resulted in a revenue loss of RM634 million, said Kamariah.
Corporate taxes contributed some RM14 billion or 48.2 per cent to the Government’s revenue of RM29.1 billion from indirect taxes last year.
This was lower compared with RM15.7 billion and RM17.3 billion in 1999 and 1998, respectively.
Kamariah said the capacity of corporate taxes to generate more revenue has been eroded due to a provision of tax incentives and a reduction in the corporate tax rates since year of assessment 1980.
She pointed out that the corporate tax rate had already been cut quite significantly from 40 per cent in 1980.
Meanwhile, another speaker at the event, Dr Verinderjeet Singh of Arthur Andersen & Co, stressed for the need to clearly define and properly word the clauses of the various tax measures announced in the budget so as to avoid confusion.
