Let’s cut to the chase. Everyone literally agrees that the annual budget tabled by the Finance Minister of the day is always designed for next year’s national financial and social prosperity. That aside, every Malaysian with an Inland Revenue tax file, a hefty cost of living to weigh down and a streak of selfishness would demand to know: “what’s in it for me that I can enjoy immediately?” Take your pick. The PM had been generous.

Budget 2009, tabled by the Prime Minister-cum-Finance Minister at 4pm today, has reams of relief for the working stiff and the moneyed class alike. If you’re among the millions enduring the daily drudgery of the national rat race, there are a slew of goodies you can rummage from, except for more sin tax. If you smoke, and if the annual trend of increasing excise duty on the killer sticks is consistent, here’s the inevitable prognosis: if the carbon monoxide you sucked from those fags don’t kill you, the price per stick per box will!

At 60 sen tax per box of 20 sticks, your daily puffing fix just torched a bigger hole in that miserable thing you call a monthly budget. But wait. Somebody opined that a regular 20-pack can bust the RM9 mark after the tobacco companies dazzle themselves with some creative calculations over the weekend. Smokers of Malaysia: sweat on this!

However, boozers were mercifully spared of outrageous raids in their quailing budgets – the PM saw to it that your drinking sessions with your buddies are just as merry and tipsy, not that pub/bar drinking had been any affordable over the years but in these days of battling the inflationary demon, a zero-tax on booze are little mercies drinkers are mighty glad to grab.

It used to be that smoking is the most favourite poison for even the most budget-conscious Joe Public who hardly knows what it means to go clubbing other than ride their motorbikes and forever be slapped with the churlish sobriquet ‘Mat Rempit’. But if puffing away means no more free spending beyond the limits of the lowest pay grade or unemployment benefits, than what’s the near-abject poor dude/chick supposed to lean on for a personal non-vice vice?

Here’s a giggly cheer: you don’t have to pay any electricity bill if your home consumes below RM20 a month from Oct 1 to Dec 31, 2009. What a lifesaver! If you know of no other means of increasing your annual taxable income to breach RM35,000, cheer up. The Budget has some dishy giveaways – tax rebate spikes by RM50 to RM400, all income from savings interest are tax-free and you get to buy various consumer applications at the lower import duties between 10-60% and 5-30%. It’s time to get rid of that sickly-working microwave ovens, rice cookers, blenders and electric kettles and drop by Court’s Mammoth at this moment to replace the whole ugly lot.

Can’t afford fine dining at the fanciest and most exotic restaurants and eateries? Beef up the grub larder now that import duties on vermicelli, biscuits, fruit juices and canned sweet corn has been excused. That diesel-slurping jalopy you call a car is finally getting a break: its road tax has been reduced to the same level as cars with petrol engines. Here’s to more nights of road warrior cruising.

The working guy with a RM2,400 annual travel allowance and below will love this: full tax exemption. Further tax exemptions for the working guy: mobile, telephone and Internet bills paid by your employers. More small mercies. But here’s a curious break: health benefits your employer gives you now covers acupuncture and ayurvedic. Pain in the back? Prick some pins, relieve the ache and earn tax breaks. Feel that herbs prescribed in ayurvedic treatment allows a Deepak Chopra-like ‘magical mind, magical body’ empowerment? Power to you and your tax break.

If you work for the Government and likely to be a union member earning less than RM3,000 in total household income, how’s this for relief: RM180 a month subsidy which works out to RM2,160 a year, enough assuagement in there for a nice end-of-year vacation perhaps in Tioman Island for the family. There’s more. A bonus of one-month salary subject to a minimum of RM1,000 for working insanely hard this year. Now we’re talking. By next month and in December, you can splurge on that sleek home theatre-in a box you’ve been drooling over since the neighbours had been ramping up quake-like decibels from the Star Wars dogfight scenes.

The moneyed lot can finally scream in finite ecstasy: their maximum income tax bracket of 28% has drop by a single per cent for next year’s assessment. If your taxed income is in the millions annually, what you thought was spare change is now enough to redecorate the villa or pay insurance to obscenely continue to maintain the Aston Martin. There is a percentage drop for the middle-class to swoon to too – marginal tax rate of 13% will drop to 12%. Still not enough for that 1st class cabin seat on the A-380 to London?

Notwithstanding the sin tax, the margins chronicled above were micro-details on what the working class (you and me and about 10 million others) would earn or not pay in the next several weeks or months. As for the other macro-relief and tax breaks, it will be a while before they trickle down to your pay cheques but let’s be patient about that. It’s the least the Government could provide for you after that lobotomy they electrocuted you with when they pumped steroids into the fuel price.

But with this amount of relief, breaks and exemptions being distributed by the PM today, you would appraise Budget 2009 as a general election budget. Drop the cynicism: the polls and Permatang Pauh are all history and there’s nothing to campaign for, so, it may be that the PM is giving you the comfort for you to survive next year when the inflationary demon hews fire and spews blood and gore on your hapless earnings by which time your day-to-day existence may need a drastic redefinition.

For now, let’s deem this as a budget for the survivalists.