PETALING JAYA: The High Court has granted an interim stay of all further proceedings for Tenaga Nasional Bhd’s (TNB) notices of additional assessment amounting to close to RM4 billion it received from the Inland Revenue Board (IRB).
This is until the hearing of the leave application on April 2, 2020.
Earlier this month, TNB commenced legal proceedings to challenge the notices for the years of assessment 2015 to 2017 raised by the IRB.
The recent assessment served on TNB came shortly after the company posted a 140% year-on-year jump in net profit to RM1.2 billion for its third quarter ended Sept 30, 2019.
In November, TNB received a tax bill of RM1.43 billion for 2015, RM1.24 billion for 2016 and RM1.3 billion for 2017, bringing the total to RM3.98 billion, to which it said there was “no legal and factual basis” for the IRB to issue the notices.
This is not the first time TNB has been slapped with a tax bill by the IRB.
On Nov 23, 2015, the company received additional assessment notices for 2013 and 2014, for RM985.57 million and RM1.08 billion respectively by the tax authority.
At the time, the IRB had approved, in principle, the company’s reinvestment allowance claim for the assessment years in question. However, after that, it reversed the approval on the basis that the company is not in the business of manufacturing that allowed such exemptions.
In 2016, both TNB and the IRB agreed to not commence any proceedings against the assessments until the matter is determined by the special commissioners of income tax and the High Court on a subsequent appeal.
