KUALA LUMPUR – The Dewan Negara today passed four bills related to customs, excise, free zones, and tourism tax.
The bills were the Customs (Amendment) Bill 2022, the Excise (Amendment) Bill 2022, the Free Zones (Amendment) Bill 2022 and the Tourism Tax (Amendment) Bill 2022.
Deputy Finance Minister II Yamani Hafez Musa when winding up the debate on the Customs (Amendment) Bill 2022 said the amendment was aimed at improving the nation’s taxation legislation in line with the current change in business.
“All matters that we amend are made based on views and feedback from our customers and they are more to facilitate our customers to fulfil their obligations as taxpayers without imposing a penalty as according to the previous act, they would be penalised.
“I feel it’s better if we learn from the Covid-19 crisis whereby we had the movement control order… I think it’s not fair to penalise them and we need to give the power to the minister to ensure they be given the flexibility so that they can pay because they are actually good taxpayers, not that they don’t want to pay on purpose,” he said in the Dewan Negara sitting today.
Yamani Hafez said the Excise (Amendment) Bill 2022 was made to include a new provision to enable certain facilitation to be given to taxpayers in the event of a public crisis or health crisis.
Besides that, he said the Free Zones (Amendment) Bill 2022 was undertaken to insert a new provision to give flexibility to the industry and government to implement obligations that are required to be completed in a specified period during a public or health crisis.
Meanwhile, the Tourism Tax (Amendment) Bill 2022 was made to add a new provision to enable certain facilitation to be given to taxpayers during a public or health crisis. – Bernama, August 15, 2022
