KOTA KINABALU: The Federation of Chinese Associations Malaysia (Huazong) has hoped that the government through the Inland Revenue Board of Malaysia (LHDN) could be more considerate and lenient when dealing with the taxpayers, especially those who are genuinely ignorant of the tax regime.
“The government should adopt a more lenient approach to first understand the actual reasons behind the taxpayers’ failure to file for income tax returns, and to better educate them on our tax regime, instead of straight away taking harsh action against them without any consideration,” said its President, Tan Sri T.C Goh.
Goh who is also President of The Federation of Chinese Associations Sabah (FCAS) urged this while speaking at the seminar on ‘Special Voluntary Disclosure Programme (SVDP) 2.0’ jointly organized by FCAS and LHDA, at the Putera Theatre Auditorium in Bukit Padang, today. Also in attendance were Datuk Abu Tariq Bin Jamaluddin, Deputy Chief Executive Officer of LHDN Malaysia, its Sabah branch director *Datuk Hajam* FCAS Vice Presidents David Chan and Johnny Ng , among others.
Goh said, the organising of the said seminar to better educate the public on taxation, and the lenient approach of not penalizing taxpayers who meet certain criteria, is commendable and well in line with the “Madani Malaysia” concept.
He noted the LHDN had earlier assured that taxpayers who voluntarily come forward to report their undeclared or under-declared taxes during the duration of the Special Voluntary Disclosure Programme (SVDP) 2.0, from June 6 till May 31, 2024, will not be compounded; and the period declared under the programme will not be audited unless there is an element of fraud.
“Hence, it’s important for taxpayers to fully grasp the detailed guidelines under the said Programme,” he said.
He continued that the SVDP was first introduced on 3 November, 2018 for the duration of 11 months; it comes with an offer of 10% to 15% remission on penalties (maximum remission allowed under the Income Tax Act 1967 is 300%).
He then highlighted there was an incident back in 2021 where the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) Malaysia had received a complaint from its members, complaining that despite having participated in the SVPD programme, the taxpayers were audited for undeclared tax. This had caused the government being accused of using the SVPD as a tool to go after those who failed to declare or under-declare their tax. Even the then Finance Minister had described the government’s ‘u-turn’ on its own policy, as being unfair to the participants of the programme.
He thus hopes, regardless of who’s in power, the government should through the LHDN sincerely implement the SVPD 2.0 and to honour its assurance of not auditing those taxpayers who meet the criteria of the Programme.
Goh acknowledged that the SVPD programme is a worthy approach to help boost the government’s revenue collection, citing that a vast majority of taxpayers and businesses are law-abiding citizens, except that some of them, especially the new comers, lacked the experience when comes to filing income tax returns, hence the oversights.
“We fully support the government’s initiative of allowing the taxpayers to better understand our tax regime through this ‘Special Voluntary Disclosure Programme (SVDP)’. At the same time, we also hope the government would be more lenient and considerate when dealing with individual or corporate taxpayers who come forward to declare their income voluntarily, during the duration of this programme.
“We also hope individual and corporate taxpayers could seize the opportunity under this programme,” he said.-pr/BNN
