SUBANG: Be honest in declaring taxes and the government will provide a reciprocal service by adopting a soft approach towards traders and companies in the implementation of the Sales and Services Tax (SST), says minister of finance Lim Guan Eng (] ).
The government would also trust retailers and businesses to declare their taxes fair, he said.
"There are some companies that are not sure if they are exempt from SST, as such the government will trust to do the necessary.
" Let them apply first (to customs). If they are exempt, then it is fine.
"However, if we investigate and determine that they are not exempt, they have to pay the taxes.
" That's the soft approach that we meant, where we place the trust in them first, "he told reporters after a briefing with companies and traders here yesterday.
Lim hoped that people would not try to avoid tax.
"Tell the truth and we will be able to overcome any problems," he said.
He said that the yesterday's briefing, which lasted more than three hours, was fruitful because many questions were asked about SST, which is expected to start on September 1.
Lim said that one of the issues at issue is the exemption for milk
"Currently normal milk is exempt from sugar, but there are many other types of milk, such as milk with chocolate flavor.
"So, I was informed about it and I believe milk is important for the development of children, so I will exempt chocolate-depleted milk from SST, which is the form of feedback and information that we want to hear and where necessary also grant an exemption, "he said.
At another conference, Customs said it was a collection of RM22bil from SST.
Customs Director General Datuk Seri T. Subromaniam said it included new industries.
Although he did not mention them, the four new industries are gambling activities, airline and charter flight services including domestic helicopter services (except Sabah) and Sarawak), information technology (IT) services and domestic electricity supply with a monthly use of more than 600 units.
"We expect a collection of RM22bil from SST, which is the target for customs and this includes the new sectors," said Subromaniam.
Initially it was reported that the collection for SST would be less than the goods and services tax (GST), whose collection is expected to drop total RM44bil this year.
Subromaniam said that the department had so far registered 77,451 companies under SST through an automatic system transfer from MyGST to MySST. Of the total, 32.557 are for sales tax while 44.874 are registered for services.
"Traders and companies," he said, "have been notified by e-mail."
However, he said, some of them were not eligible to be registered under MySST.
He called companies that were not eligible to contact the customs and to resolve the matter immediately.
Approximately 10,000 companies still to be registered under SST are encouraged to do so because they may experience problems when SST starts.
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