THE government is unlikely to reintroduce Goods and Services Tax (GST) in light of the slowing world economy. GST is seen to be a regressive tax...

THE  Inland Revenue Board of Malaysia (IRB) and the Royal Malaysian Customs Department (Customs) are expected to collect about RM270 billion in...

The upcoming budget next month has prompted discussions about the possible reintroduction of the GST and various other fiscal reforms to manage the...

MALAYSIA will be following many other countries in digitalising invoicing through the e-invoice system that will be mandatorily implemented in...

REFGISTRATION for Sales and Service Tax (SST) should be a simple affair. Why is this a problem for many businesses? This is not a matter of choice....

TAXATION principles do not discriminate between legal and illegal activities. The fact that the income may be illegal or immoral is of no concern...

RESIDENCE is basically determining where the company or LLP’s home is for tax purposes. Whenever you undertake international transactions, whether...

AT the moment, the thrust of the Inland Revenue Board (IRB) is to encourage taxpayers to comply with tax laws without the necessity to spend time...

GRANTING of leases and tenancies by property owners on a short-term or long-term basis is very common. The common understanding among laymen is that...

STAMP duty is imposed on instruments – which include any written documents such as agreements, memorandums, contracts, deeds, wills, bonds and...

SALES and Service Tax (SST) is administered by the Royal Malaysian Customs Department (RMCD). Sales tax is applied on goods manufactured by...

IF YOU hold shares in a company that principally owns real estate (value of real estate exceeds 75% of the total tangible assets of the company),...

FILING tax returns without supporting documentation is effectively a “death knell” for taxpayers. In such a situation, the taxpayer is just asking...

TAXPAYERS want certainty and finality to their tax affairs. They do not want to be revisited by any tax authorities many years after they have...

IN A recent interview, Inland Revenue Board (IRB) CEO Datuk Mohd Nizom Sairi stated: “We are stating to them (non-compliant taxpayers) that after...

IT IS now mandatory to have the transfer pricing documentation (TPD) to support the arm’s length pricing of transactions undertaken between...

THE Inland Revenue Board (IRB) has “turned up the heat” on taxpayers who fail to file their annual tax returns. The IRB is no longer willing to wait...

TAXPAYERS submit voluminous information annually and upon request to the Inland Revenue Board (IRB). This is done through the filing of annual tax...

MALAYSIA practises a self-assessment system for income tax purposes – which effectively means that the taxpayer is responsible for filing tax...

IT IS commonly accepted by directors that upon settlement of tax matters with the Inland Revenue Board (IRB) or Royal Malaysian Customs (RMCD), that...

THE original intention of introducing a specific provision to deal with investment holding companies in 1993 has disappeared because the main income...

ON DEC 30, 2022, there was a press statement issued by the Ministry of Finance (MoF) which indicated that foreign-sourced dividends will be tax...

GOOD taxpayers are being cheated by bad taxpayers who intentionally set out to avoid paying taxes or underpay their taxes. Be forewarned that...

AS individuals with passive rental income need to file personal tax returns by April 30, 2023, this article provides an overview of the taxation of...

THERE is a lot of noise around Luxury Tax. Some regard this as taking money from the rich and giving it to the rakyat. There is a lot of uncertainty...

MALAYSIA'S Inland Revenue Board (IRB) had in the past taken the view that intangible assets do not qualify as an expense deduction or eligible for...

THROUGHOUT the past two decades, Malaysia has been running a budget deficit. This year’s deficit will be 5% of gross domestic product, amounting to...

THE previous finance minister in his Budget speech in October 2022 indicated that the government would be implementing e-invoicing in phases...

The revised Budget 2023 tabled last Friday proposes to revive the Special Voluntary Declaration Programmes (SVDP) with full penalty waiver beginning...

DESPITE the difficult economic environment domestically and internationally, Prime Minister and Finance Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim has...

IN THE minds of most taxpayers, transfer pricing is an income tax matter. Indirect taxation (sales tax, service tax and customs duties) doesn’t come...

  THE Malaysian capital gains tax regime is confined to gains made from the sale/transfer of real estate. It does not tax any other capital...

GENERALLY, whenever there are transactions, the focus is on income tax, Real Property Gains Tax, sales and service tax and customs duties. The stamp...

TAX planning is the legitimate right of any taxpayer to manage and minimise taxes within the legal framework. The tax legislation is very specific,...

REAL property transactions are subject to various taxes such as income tax, real property gains tax, and stamp duty. In the past, goods and services...

THERE is a general assumption among taxpayers, once the goods have been exported/imported, their responsibilities have been discharged and there...

MALAYSIA  has been running a budget deficit since 1998, and Budget 2023, announced by the previous finance minister, was the largest ever budget at...

THERE are many individuals who live in Malaysia and work for foreign employers. It may due to the fact that the family is in Malaysia or Malaysia is...

ALL business enterprises except for sole proprietorships which undertake intercompany transactions have now a greater burden to disclose more...

THE basic principle for claiming a tax deduction is that the expenditure must incurred wholly and exclusively in the production of income, which can...

THERE are more than 1,100 franchises registered with the Ministry of Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs. In 2022, the total sales value exceeded...

NO business can function in today’s corporate environment without using software. Businesses have to buy or license software. The tax laws regarding...

THE taxability of donations has come into the limelight recently in the former prime minister’s case where the Inland Revenue Board (IRB) and the...

THE Inland Revenue Board (IRB) has ratcheted up its operation to unearth delinquent individuals and business enterprises suspected to be outside the...

BUDGET 2023 is focused on helping businesses that are just beginning to recover from the Covid pandemic, and it also targets to help selected...

ALL goods imported into or exported out of Malaysia must have a Harmonised System (HS) Code. HS Code is used by more than 200 countries as a basis...

ALL pricing of intercompany transactions will require to be documented in the Transfer Pricing Documentation (TPD) which is mandatorily required...

AT RM332.1 billion, Budget 2022 is the largest budget in the history of Malaysia. The clear focus of this budget is to revive the economy and to...

MALAYSIA was battered by the Covid crisis in 2020 and 2021 and the current headwinds blowing from the Russia-Ukraine war and the US-China conflict...

IN BUDGET 2022, the government announced that it intended to tax foreign-sourced income received in Malaysia from Jan 1, 2022 by all Malaysian tax...

THE recent win in the High Court by Tenaga Nasional Bhd (TNB) in its claim for reinvestment allowance (RA) of RM1.8 billion for 2018 has sent...

IT is not uncommon for both corporate and individual taxpayers to inadvertently make mistakes in filing their tax returns. The income tax...

MALAYSIA spends significant resources in attracting foreign direct investments (FDI) to locate their businesses in Malaysia spearheaded through the...

MALAYSIA is a small economy with a population of 33 million and, therefore, businesses have to expand overseas in order to grow. This is reflected...

ANY organisation receiving donations from the public and spending monies on charitable activities without any intention to make profits could be...

THE government has made a surprising U-turn on Dec 30, 2021 after announcing that foreign-sourced income received in Malaysia by Malaysian tax...

IN an ideal situation, if taxpayers were to voluntarily comply with their tax obligations, both the taxpayer and the Inland Revenue Board (IRB) will...

GOOD news for all business enterprises including companies carrying out domestic related party transactions! Such enterprises will be relieved from...

CRYPTOCURRENCY is a form of digital money similar to cash such as ringgit and US dollar, which is not controlled by any central bank or anyone....

THE government has come up with another special voluntary disclosure programme (SVDP) dealing specifically with indirect taxes to be administered by...

THIS is certainly a hot topic as many taxpayers were surprised by the Budget 2022 measure to tax foreign sourced income received by Malaysian...

THERE has been much discussion on the introduction of new taxes or raising tax revenues by tightening the tax administration. The new taxes that...

IN recent years there has been a significant increase in the level of audit/investigation activities by the Inland Revenue Board (IRB). The...

ILLEGAL income arises from illegal activities. It is an act which the law disapproves of, or completely bans. There are two types of activities:...

THE possibility of bad debts is always present in business. It is natural to assume that such bad debts will be tax deductible. However, that is not...

IN 2021, Forbes Asia reported that the wealth of the 50 richest Malaysian individuals increased from US$70 billion to US$90 billion (RM292 billion...

TAX havens are offshore countries that offers individuals and businesses a tax regime that imposes no tax or minimal tax without the requirement for...

TRANSFER pricing is triggered when there are transactions between associated persons or related parties, one of whom has control over the other or...

WITH the possibility of a general election being called anytime before mid-2023, political parties will need to fill their coffers to finance their...

IT is becoming common for the Inland Revenue Board (IRB) to ask high net worth individuals to account for the movement of their wealth on a...

PREVIOUSLY we warned readers that Inland Revenue Board (IRB) scrutiny of interest-free loans between related parties was looming, and now it is a...

MALAYSIA does not tax capital gains other than on gains from disposal of real property. The idea of shares being taxed under Real Property Gains Tax...

IN the current climate, the government is looking for revenue to fund the increase in expenditure to deal with the Covid crisis and to fund the...

TAXPAYERS value legal certainty in the application of laws to enable them to plan so as to avoid being left in the dark with regard to their...

LAST WEEK, I have discussed the tax treatment of the distribution of unit trust at the hands of unit holders. Today, the focus will be on real...

THE unit trust industry is huge in Malaysia and the Securities Commission Malaysia Annual Report 2020 states that funds under the management of unit...

THE increasing audit and investigation activities by the Inland Revenue Board (IRB) have resulted in taxpayers and the IRB finding themselves at...

TO the layman, there is little difference between reimbursement and disbursement because both involve the payer being repaid for a payment that has...

MALAYSIA taxes income on a territorial basis – income that arises in, derived from or received in Malaysia from outside Malaysia. Most countries in...

UNDERSTANDING the concept of tax residence is important for your taxation status in Malaysia and whenever you undertake transactions overseas....

TAXPAYERS have the right to appeal against assessments and tax must be paid within the 30 days of the issuance of the assessment, otherwise there...

THE coming full lockdown will have a severe impact on the majority of businesses particularly SMEs and the services sector. Although many businesses...

INTEREST-FREE loans among corporate groups in Malaysia are a common means of funding entities to carry on their businesses. It is also common for...

WITH the government’s push to increase tax collection, the relationship between the Inland Revenue Board (IRB) and the taxpayers has changed...

BUSINESSES cannot operate without purchasing digital services to serve their customers, deal with suppliers and operate their business functions....

DO YOU as a taxpayer know your rights when you are dealing with the Inland Revenue Board (IRB)? As a taxpayer, the fundamental duty is to file your...

SURCHARGE is a new concept to the Malaysian tax regime and we do not know the rationale behind it – where additional taxes can be collected by the...

WITH the tax filing for individuals due by April 30 (paper filing) and May 15 (e-filing), it is timely to remind ourselves of the need to keep...

THE owners of SMEs in many cases do not understand the difference between themselves as individual shareholders and the company as a separate...

THE Budget 2021 announcements which have now become the law under Finance Act 2020 have made very important changes to the transfer pricing regime...

‘TAX avoidance’ has recently been demonised as an unsavoury practice adopted by taxpayers to avoid paying their due share of taxes. Most people will...

TODAY’S businesses cannot function independently from the digital economy. The digital economy is a result of a transformative process brought by...

THE principal mission of charities is to help society at large i.e. by alleviating poverty, advancing education, advancing community development,...

THE taxation of gifts came into limelight when the issue of the RM2.6 billion political donation received from the previous prime minister, Datuk...

RETAIL investors made big waves on Bursa Malaysia in 2020 and at different times of the year; their participation went up as much as 43% of the...

ARE you aware that the Inland Revenue Board (IRB) cannot raise tax assessments or tax bills beyond a five-year period? This applies equally to Real...

WE should all pay the right amount of taxes – not more, not less. Wherever the law permits us to legally reduce our taxes, we should do so. Anything...

IT’S A matter of time before GST is reintroduced. Why? The government cannot keep on borrowing or extracting funds from government-linked companies...