Over 2,000 cases of tax evasion related to GST charged in court since 2015

KUALA LUMPUR: The Royal Malaysian Customs Department has brought to court more than 2,000 cases of tax evasion for failing to comply with the Goods and Services Tax (GST) since April 2015.
Deputy Finance Minister Datuk Othman Aziz told the Dewan Rakyat that all businesses are monitored through an electronic information system to check on tax declarations and backlog.
He said the Customs have opened a total of 14,578 investigation papers since the GST implementation of which some 2,097 cases were prosecuted in court.
Othman added that as of July, 928 of the cases were found guilty.
"One of the biggest issues we face is the failure to declare taxes by businesses.
"We have introduced the GST Electronic Information System to monitor declarations by business in 212 premises so far. The system will aid in ensuring there is no backlog in the declaration (of taxes)," he said.
Othman was responding to Datuk Aaron Ago Dagang (BN-Kanowit), who asked the government to state problems encountered in implementing GST collection.
He also said GST related complaints from consumers have reduced over the years.
"In 2015, we received 6,830 complaints while in 2016 it reduced significantly to 1,235.
"As of July 2017, we only recorded 185 complaints. This goes to show that people are adapting and are better informed on how the system works," Othman said.
He said the government estimates RM40billion in GST collection revenue this year with 454,609 businesses registered for GST as of September.
"As for 2018, we need to look at the economic climate at that time and analyse how it may affect GST revenue," he said.