The Minister of Finance says that this has affected the payments to 121,429 companies and private individuals.
Lim Guan Eng says that former Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Najib Razak should explain his role in not paying GST refunds.
PETALING JAYA: Minister of Finance Lim Guan Eng today announced his statement by the police about the "missing" RM19.25 billion in goods and services tax (GST).
In a statement today he said that he had told the police that this had affected payments to 121,429 companies and individuals.
He said that they have not received their refunds since 2015.
According to the GST Act 2014, he said that the refunds of input tax should have been made within two weeks.
He said that the unpaid GST claims for 2015 were RM610 million (3% of the total number of claims), for 2016 it amounted to RM2,821 million (15%), for 2017 this was RM6,782 million (35%) and before 2018 (until 31 May) it was RM9,184 million (47%).
Lim said the government was dealing with a deficit of RM19.25 billion because there is only RM148.6 million in the GST account for refunds.
"The federal government is working hard to return the RM19.4 billion early next year, because the money is not from the government but from the people."
He urged former Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Najib Razak to answer questions about why the refunds were not returned to these companies and individuals.
He wanted Najib to tell whether he had allowed GST returns not to be made within two weeks, as required by law.
"Has Datuk Seri Najib given the approval that the GST reimbursements that have not been reimbursed since 2015 are instead recognized as government revenues and used as the government satisfies?"
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