KUALA LUMPUR: Furniture industry players have protested against the Malaysian Customs Department for the penalty imposed on them for “unpaid sales tax”.
Muar Furniture Association secretary-general Poh Leong Yah said for over 30 years, the industry had been exempted from sales tax. “All this while, we were told by Customs that we need not apply for a CJ (sales tax licence). “We did not evade taxes,” he said at a press conference at Wisma MCA here yesterday.
Poh said the Johor Customs Department started auditing their business after the Goods and Services Tax (GST) came into effect in April last year.
So far, five factory operators have been penalised and asked to settle unpaid taxes amounting to RM1.2mil. The unpaid taxes are supposedly backdated to more than two years before the implementation of GST. Poh said 10 more operators were being investigated for the same reason.
He said they went to the Customs headquarters in Putrajaya to appeal but were still told that they must pay the taxes.
“This is not fair because our industry was exempted from the sales tax according to the Sales Tax (Exemption from Licensing) Order 1997,” he said.
Earlier, Poh handed over a memorandum on their plight to MCA president Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai. Liow, who is the Transport Minister, said he would raise the matter in the Cabinet.
Also present were Malaysian Timber Council chairman Datuk Wee Jeck Seng, who is also MCA deputy secretary-general, and MCA Youth deputy chairman Chris Lee Ching Yong, who is also Muar Furniture Association’s legal adviser.
Muar is Malaysia’s furniture-making hub, producing about 50% of the country’s total output for export. According to Wee, Malaysia is ranked the eighth largest furniture exporter in the world.
