EPF Contribution: 11% drop to 8%

18th November 2008
EPF Contribution reduce from 11% to 8%, is it good or bad thing?
Since this is my blog and this is my view, and my point of view only, i would say i totally agree with this but i'm sure, there are a lot of people would disagree with me as well.

Perhaps you may know that this EPF reduction is merely an option to you and knowing that you would have extra money in the pocket would bring some hope and definately joy to certain people if not all. Since this is an option, at least you know you have a choice to make whether to have extra money for you to pull through the hard time now or you can save in for the future when you retire later, if you are still alive that is.

You have to understand that government is merely open up another option to its people to think about and to move on with the current bad time. You can say you are worry that you might not have enough money when you retire later but think it this way, we survive today to have tomorrow, so why worry about tomorrow when you can't even survive today right? Some of you would debate with me on this matter but then again, i would not say you are wrong either. We have our own principle and my principle for this matter is quite clear, take out the money that i would save for the 3% difference.

One of the groups opposing to this matter, MTUC or The Malaysian Trade Union Congress even mentioned that:

"a 35-year-old person with a RM3,000 monthly salary would be reducing his EPF contribution by RM2,160 over the course of two years. Assuming that a 5% dividend is paid out annually with the compound element over a period of 20 years, he will be RM5,500 “poorer” when he retires. And this is not taking into consideration past (one-year period in 2001 and 2003) and future exercises of a similar nature.
" (Taken from The Star Newspaper dated November 16, 2008)

I would definately agree with them and all those opposer that you will lose in term of money when you retire later but what if i say, i get the extra money, 3%, and channel into something else which is usefull now. I bet few of you guys out there would miss-used the money but then again, i bet many of you would put it into good use for now since today is always better then tomorrow. I could think of many things that this money can be put into good use and i believe there are more to it. Some can take the extra money to buy daily food or materials since everything shoot up when the price went up during the mid year 2008 crisis just because of the petrol price had gone up. This can of course reduce many peoples' burden and since traders and sellers don't know how to reduce the price of their goods when their sole excuse for raising the price initially has come down, we should take drastic step to ensure our survival today. I would say we should boycott their items to force them reduce the price but then again, if we don't buy their stuff, then what should be eat? Shit? For those who has bought house(s), they can take the extra money to be channel into settling their bank loan since reducing it can save us a lot of interest that we need to pay lo. If that is not enough for you, then you can take the extra 3% and save it up in case of emergency since everything is very unstable now and the 3%( 2 years) money would definately come in handy when in need.

Well, there are tons of excuse people can think off to use the extra 3% but then again, there are many people who have tons of excuse NOT to take out the extra 3%. For those who oppose it, you just fill up the simple form and just get over with. Please, filling up the form is not a hasle. You fill up many forms in your life and why make this one an exception. For me, saying filling up forms is too difficult and hasle is just an excuse.......damn lame excuse.

Remember, this reduction of 3% is just an OPTION. Please don't think it as a sin given by the government as you still have choice to make. So please, make your choice.