IRB: New system is not mandatory

KUALA LUMPUR: The new schedular tax deduction system will not be mandatory and will give flexibility to employers.

Inland Revenue Board (IRB) chief executive officer Datuk Hasmah Abdullah said employers could choose to submit their tax exemptions monthly, twice a year or any other number of times per year.

“They can also maintain the status quo of submitting once a year."

“It is not mandatory to have adjustments made monthly,” she told a press conference yesterday.

She said this in relation to The Star’s frontpage report on the IRB’s new STD system that would take effect from Jan 1.

The new system is aimed at overcoming the problem of over-deductions.

She said there is a STD calculator on the IRB website that could help them determine the correct amount to be deducted.

IRB revenue management department director, Mohammad Sait Ahmad, said an e-STD application was also being developed that would assist employers in computing automatically how much they would have to deduct.

Meanwhile, the Malaysian Airlines System Employees Union (Maseu) has called on the IRB to come up with a better solution to solve the problem of tax over-deduction.

It said it should not pass the buck to employees and employers.