GST no excuse to raise rent, maintenance fees,
says Customs – Bernama
Implementation of the goods and services tax (GST) must
not be used as an excuse to raise house rents and
maintenance bills for residential properties, which are
exempted from the tax, said the Royal Malaysian Customs.
Senior assistant director of Customs II, real property,
construction and professionals sector, Raizam Mustapha,
said the development of land or buildings used for
residential, agricultural land or for general purposes
are not subjected to GST.
"Any property in
Malaysia categorised as residential is exempted from
GST.
"Buildings that are not deemed residential buildings are
considered commercial and subjected to GST," she said in
Putrajaya today. |
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The GST will be implemented from April 1 at the rate of
6% to replace the sales and services tax (SST) totalling
16%.
Commenting on maintenance bills, Raizam
said they are also exempted from GST to prevent
occupants, especially of stratified residential
properties from being burdened.
She said that any charges related to a building's
maintenance bill is determined by the Joint Management
Body (JMB) or Management Corporation (MC) and it should
not be associated with the implementation of the GST.
At present the JMB or MC is exempted from registering
with the GST, therefore maintenance bills should not be
increased, she added.
"For cleaning purposes, the JMB or MC may get the
services of parties (companies) which are not registered
for GST, which has a turnover not exceeding RM500,000,"
she said.
Moreover, Raizam said under GST, residential land
developers can recover the costs for the construction of
public facilities such as schools, housing estates,
religious houses and roads from the government through
the input tax.
However, she explained that the 6% claim is only
eligible if the developers surrender all the public
facilities erected to the government. – Bernama, March
27, 2015.
Source:
The Malaysian Insider
, dated
27/03/2015 |
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