Customs to collect RM3 billion extra in GST in 2017

It says its enforcement approach adopted before seemed ineffective and it will now adopt a more customer-friendly strategy, based on education

JOHOR BAHRU: The Royal Malaysian Customs Department expects an additional collection of RM3 billion in goods and services tax (GST) next year through the Customs Blue Ocean Strategy Operations (Ops CBOS) approach, which focuses more on informed compliance.

Customs deputy director-general (enforcement and compliance) T Subromaniam said the target was based on the additional RM1 billion collected within four months after the Ops CBOS was implemented last September.
“The enforcement approach we adopted before seemed ineffective.

“Thus, this time we will change to a more customer-friendly strategy based on education to give guidance to the traders who are still confused about the GST system,” he told reporters after the launch of CBOS operations at Menara JKDM here today.

He explained there were also traders who still did not fully understand the GST system.

“Some traders are not paying GST correctly, some even charged GST lower than the fixed rate and some collected GST but didn’t make payments to the department.”

As such, he said the operation was aimed at educating the traders who were still confused or did not understand GST, and also at fixing their systems to smoothen tax collection in the future.

Subromaniam said as many as 200,000 out of the 430,000 GST-registered companies nationwide would be visited by the department through its Ops CBOS, which involved restaurants, retailers, building contractors, general merchandise and hardware stores, and entertainment centres.

He urged traders who have a problem with the GST system to contact the department and its personnel would visit the traders to lend a hand.

“After this, strict action will be taken against traders who do not comply with GST regulations, including failing to submit a statement or collecting taxes that are not paid to the department,” he said.

According to Subromaniam, since the implementation of GST in April 2015, a total of 4,000 investigation papers had been opened with 400 companies prosecuted for various GST-related offences.

Ops CBOS, implemented on Sept 1 this year, aimed to verify and audit GST-registered companies in addition to providing exemption for companies which voluntarily declared their mistakes or paid lesser amounts, before the end of this year. -FMT