PETALING JAYA: The Inland Revenue Board (IRB) today denied a viral claim on social media that taxpayers data is recorded based on race.
“The IRB never records the data of tax collection based on the composition of race and it is not in our standard operating procedure (SOP),” it said in a statement.
“IRB would like to stress that the data which is going viral on social media is not true. Therefore, IRB wishes to advise the people not to spread inaccurate information to avoid misunderstanding.”
The fraudulent information appeared via a Facebook account holder by the name of ‘Shuaib Post’ with the caption, “Siapa kata bangsa Cina & India banyak bayar cukai dekat kerajaan?” (Who says the Chinese and Indians pay the most taxes to the government?).
The posting claimed to quote a White Paper submitted by IRB to Parliament, purportedly detailing records of taxpayers from 2015 to 2018 based on race.
Based on this data, the post alleged that Malays were the largest contributors with 63% (RM97.852 million), followed by the Chinese 13% (RM33 million) and Indians 1.8% (RM2 million-RM3 million).
“The fact which describes Chinese pay the most taxes is a lie. Refer to IRB for the data. We know the Chinese prefer to avoid paying taxes because they do not like GST,” the posting read.
A look at IRB’s website showed that records are not classified based on race.
