Customs Dept prepared to enforce GST on April 1
PETALING JAYA: With just two weeks to go before the
scheduled implementation of the controversial Goods
and Services Tax (GST), Customs director-general
Datuk Seri Khazali Ahmad says the department is
ready for the replacement tax regime to come into
force.
Although there is much anxiety over the GST with
some grey areas in the policy implementation which
have been raised by businesses and consumers and yet
to be resolved, Khazali nevertheless feels the
department is ready to cope, with some 3,000
officers in its GST division and another 1,500 to
come on board by the end of the year.
"The Customs Department has put a lot of effort to
ensure the implementation of GST will not have a
negative impact on businesses in Malaysia, but in
reality the scope that it has to cover is beyond our
expectation because of the various ways of doing
business," Khazali told theSun in an exclusive
interview last week.
There has been much anxiety over the impending
implementation of the replacement tax as some grey
areas in the policy have been raised by businesses
and consumers but have yet to be resolved. |
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"The Customs Department is
the enforcement and implementation agency for GST
policies drawn up by the Ministry of Finance (MoF) and
will enforce what has been laid down in the GST Act
2014," Khazali said.
The Domestic Trade,
Cooperatives and Consumerism Ministry, meanwhile, is
charged with policing the anti-profiteering act and
pricing issues arising from its implementation.
"We have been preparing our officers for quite some
time, more than two years, (but) although we are
prepared, the actual outcome is when implementation
takes place," he said, adding that business communities
have also been given enough time to understand the GST.
"But with more than 25 sectors and a few hundred ways of
doing business in Malaysia, we can't really say which
sectors or which types of business will have problems
when GST is implemented.
"My officers will be on
the ground to lend a helping hand but, to a certain
extent, we also need business communities to change
their ways of doing business to comply with the law,"
Khazali said, explaining that the department will be
firm but fair with businesses which genuinely make
mistakes in the initial months of implementation.
"The focus is to educate taxpayers. While we may
consider not imposing heavy penalties on unintentional
errors, any attempt at fraud will not escape the long
arm of the law," said Khazali, adding that to promote
better understanding of the tax regime, the department
will be conducting advisory audits in the first two
years of implementation.
" I don't want a
situation on April 1 where people see a new creature
coming into the nation, a 'lembaga hitam' which is going
to disturb our daily life. It won't happen that way.
Rest assured that will not happen because this is just
another system of taxation which is more transparent,"
said Khazali.
A special technical group in the
GST division, he said, has been set up to tackle
enquiries forwarded by businesses and to come up with a
segment called "DG's Decision" in its GST portal to
address pertinent issues arising from businesses.
On the readiness of businesses for the GST, he said
although the department had estimated to have 240,000
registrants, more than 350,000 had in fact registered.
"This number of registrations – the support – is an
indicator that they are ready to do this," he said.
Asked to comment on reports that some businesses have
claimed they will close down due to the implementation
of GST, Khazali said he did not think it should be a
problem.
"Why should they make GST an excuse for
them to close down the business? And if someone says
they want to close down the business, there's nothing
much you can do. Because that is their choice. But don't
use GST as an excuse to close down the business," he
said.
He added that the department has done its
best through hand-holding programmes – about 285 held
all over the country last year – to ensure that smaller
businesses are not left behind, but they received poor
response.
Only half of 88,000 GST-registered
businesses invited for the programmes in 2014 turned up,
while only 7,300 of 29,000 businesses invited in the
first quarter of this year showed up.
SAs to
existing grey areas which the department is working on,
he said businesses have the option of going for
"advanced rulings" which will provide businesses with
certainties on the tax treatment for specific issues and
transactions.
He said many businesses have opted
for this mode of clarification, but due to the generic
nature of the queries the department has converted it
into frequently asked questions (FAQs) and frequently
asked issues (FAIs), which are now published on its
website.
"Currently, public concern is focused
on the prices of certain goods an services. We have no
control on pricing issues but we would say that we have
taken all steps to ensure that goods and services (used)
widely by the public will have minimum impact on
expenditures," Khazali said.
For example,
through its "Taxpayers Access Point" on its website, the
public can check the GST number on receipts of
businesses to see if they are eligible to charge GST.
To reduce issues of misinterpreting queries and answers
from the department, the public is encouraged to email
queries to ccc@customs.gov.my
The department,
which has 24 agents at its call centre to handle GST
queries, will be deploying more officers in expectation
of an increasing number of enquiries from midnight April
1.
Source:::
The Sun Daily , dated 15/03/2015......... |