any thing new in Tax Reforms 2018 ?

Any thing new in Tax Reforms 2018?

The establishment of the Tax Reform Committee is part of the government’s effort in reforming the tax system to address tax leakages, reduce the existing tax gap and explore new sources of revenue to increase tax collection.

This followed with the Operational Guidelines No. 1/2018 by the Inland Revenue Board of Malaysia with a special program for voluntary disclosure.

  These Guidelines outline the implementation procedures of the Special Program for Voluntary Disclosure (Special Program) for eligible taxpayers following the 2019 Budget announcement by The Honorable Minister of Finance Malaysia on 02 November 2018.

 Hence, this Special Program is offered to encourage taxpayers to make voluntary disclosure in reporting their income and paying tax within the stipulated period. Besides Malaysia, countries offering voluntary disclosure programs include the United States of America, United Kingdom, Australia, Japan, Singapore and Indonesia to name a few.

In the budget 2019, this program is known as “tax amnesty” of sort trying to secure more tax in 2019.

What is listed in Operational Guidelines No.1 /2018 if they are really the only recommendations of the Tax Reform Committee, I believe this fall short of the tax reforms as expected which is much to be desired after 60years of BN Government.

I also believe what is in the special program is largely nothing new as IRB had been doing it over the years selectively.

We certainly need to do better to address tax leakages, reduce the existing tax gap and explore new sources with the proper legal review of the existing system which has been in place for decades.

Certainly I doubt if there are any new sources of revenues as the present one is already loaded with parameters that can bring much hardship to the willing taxpayers largely for a certain group of people.  Would the new sources deemed to be for more revenues further burden the same group of taxpayers?  What about the other groups that do not really pay income tax over the decades?  That would be true justice with fairness throughout.

With the introduction of accrued accounting from cash accounting in the preparation of all business accounts for submission for taxation irrespective of the size of the companies in Malaysia largely SMEs, this can mean much hardship for such willing taxpayers.  Such small and medium enterprises lack the resources to keep accounting in the accrued accounting especially irrecoverable debts turning into bad debts after accounting for tax purposes is indeed very burdensome for all such companies.  Such companies in cash accounting systems would be penalised heavily by the IRB on desk audit or tax investigation with substantial penalties etc.  So I would suggest that there is a threshold of revenue and/or assets of such companies to kick start their business in cash accounting before they embark on accrued accountings.  Even many Government bodies and Government agencies still work on cash accounting.  Any such collection of late penalties and other heavy penalties imposed by IRB which can be very substantial over the years is not to be considered normal collection of additional tax revenues as there is no measure of regular performance.  To the ordinary businessmen such heavy penalties so paid would be passed on the ignorant consumers at large hence cost of living has escalated over the years of mismanagement of the corrupted Government.

There are many areas of tax reforms to right what has been wrong over the decades and such corrective measures now can address the real tax leakages substantially as they are into the billions of ringgit annually.

The question of religion is indeed sensitive and when income tax revenue is concerned there should be any “taboo” matter as Malaysia is truly a secular nation given a truly multi racial and multi religious status we are in.  So why should we have this lopsided treatment when a famous lawyer Puan Siti Kassim and others have clarified that the national religion is indeed a private matter like all other religions between the practitioners and God. Honestly, I do not know how the policies in Income Tax have any connection with the national religion when everyone has to pay their taxes in similar fashion as per secular laws rather than compromised in any other context.

The areas that the state has got itself entangled in the reduction or leakages of income tax are polygamy, children reliefs (father and several wives/ divorcees) and payment of Zakat. 

I believe there are no published figures on tax leakages on Islamic marriages as why should the Government be involved in sort of “lust” of those people by encouraging them with tax allowances and reliefs when the polygamists justify their personal and private habits that their entitlements is based on their financial capabilities.  if that is the case, why should the State subsidies their habits and such people should pay for their practices?  Only the first wife and their children from that marriage be entitled like all other citizens are entitled to all facilities – health, education, housing discounts etc etc -provided by the Government.  So isn’t this lopsidedness be addressed to reduce all financial leakages?  The identity card should state the status of such people.

The other known aspect is Zakat as allowed in the Income Tax system. Just to illustrate the tax leakages of Zakat, it has been disclosed as follows: RM320,348,661.01 (2001) RM373,924,167 (2002) RM408,430,403.56 (2003)  RM473,269 ,093 (2004) RM 573,088,305 .74 (2005)  RM671,095,888.89 (2006) Source : PPZ-MAIWP Annual Report 2006.  Zakat was established since 1991 and RM2.2 b was collected in 2013.  So how much is it in 2017?  Many companies also claim substantial zakat in their tax returns.  Zakat is utilised for that community only.  Is it timely for a tax reform in this area now?

There are also many areas that financial resources are diverted for the national but personal/private religion and they all add up to tens of billions Ringgit annually.

We have missed “globalisation” hence we also miss some the global revenue sources.

Now we in the threshold of global cryptocurrency but has the Government seriously considered the implications for our fiscal economy? At the budget 2019, the Finance Minister announced that the programme would be laid out in 2019.  I believe this cryptocurrency can be like GST at 6% if not properly implemented.  So what about the tax implication here? So if the shares dealings have not any tax implications due to the volatilities of prices thereof even with the realisation of profits in some transactions against some losses in other, cryptocurrencies should also be not implied with taxation.  The price volatility of cryptocurrencies are wide unlike our national currency are subject to depreciation over time and never recover.  Cryptocurrencies are akin to “gambling”.   If the Government intends to tax the cryptocurrencies deals for gains, then it must be prepared to allow the losses too.  Would this item be in the tax reforms?

Joshua Y C Kong 9/Nov/2018

Urgent Attention of Art Harun of Elections Commission Malaysia (ECM)

Urgent Attention of Art Harun of Elections Commission Malaysia (ECM)

Please advise PM and Law Minister to declare GE14 illegal, null and void.

See the play of figure of seats in the Sabah State Assembly as per hearing in High Court on 25/10/2018 when the GE 14 is illegal and rigged by ECM. High Court acting on a national FRAUD.

In GE2004 and GE2008, Form 16 confirmed rigging in the discrepancies of ballot papers issued for Parliament and state seats thereof. In Form 16, there was an item ballot papers in boxes.

In GE2013 and GE2018, Form 16 was manipulated by ECM by dropping the item “Ballot papers in boxes”. Instead, ECM had this item “Ballot papers issued” which can be manipulated in the absence of Form 14 and 15. Sure there won’t be discrepancies of ballot papers issued.

But in GE2013, ECM had two sets of Gazette of the GE results (Form 16) to confirm the rigging.

So in GE2018 (GE14), Form 16 similarly manipulated to cover up any discrepancies of ballot papers issued. I am right all the way and nobody prove me wrong since 2004. Instead ECM proved me RIGHT with a double Gazette in GE2013. ( I can illustrate with some working of figures)

Joshua Y C Kong – author of Malaysian General Elections 2004 – a case of victory of landslide or rigslide 26/10/2018

EcoG to save the degraded earth to save ourselves

EcoGeneration to save the degraded earth to save ourselves

This is my second major article after my earlier article titled “Climate change is for real, including Sabah “, as published on: Monday, October 19, 2015 in the Daily Express’s  Home / Opinion’s edition.

In that article only some minor solutions were suggested, but now in the largely impasse of the Government and other major NGOs- local and international - in dealing with the consequences of climate change, I am going to suggest a major move to mitigate the adverse impact of climate change before it is really too late.  It is already acknowledged that climate change’s impact on the earth is so huge and that the many effort in piecemeal approaches could have only minimal mitigation.  So we really take the challenge with major measures already known.  Such measures would be in the agenda of EcoGeneration (EcoG)– a coalition of ecologists, consumers and environmentalists to address in concerted effort over various scenarios of climate change in the various consequences on the degraded earth while we also do recovery works for the earth in various concerns.

I will go into details of EcoG later when the theme or vision of EcoG since March 2018 is Save the degraded earth to save ourselves. 

It is indeed a co-incidence or God-incidence that we had a similar article namely “Half the planet should be set aside for wildlife – to save ourselves according to New Scientist 13 September 2018. Why such a huge warning from New Scientist be still ignored? Have we heeded this urgent demand?  How are we to do what is expected here urgently when wildlife is near extinction in all continents?  EcoG as proposed is much bigger many times than this demand as I will relate the scope later.  So it would appear wildlife is equally important with human lives if we are to survive on earth.

So are we serious we want to save ourselves?  Or we fated to perish soon?

Since my article in 2015 and now with the latest proposal of EcoG, we don’t see the expected response from people I had been sharing that we need to implement EcoG immediately without any further delay.

So I hope after this article, we will secure the positive responses to do justice for this generation and future generations as we have in this generation done so much damages to the much exploited earth which appears to be irrecoverable.

That maybe a perception based on the feedback from society which is largely complacent to the environment around us.  But it is no longer only on environment as the challenge before us is so much bigger as consumerism is implicated too as how we handle daily business etc.  

Are we really tired and exhausted with life on earth?  Can I draw an analogy as when many sick people near the end would go at length to seek the best of medical help with possible last resort but when we know the earth is critical “sick”, what have we done about that when there are many billionaires around also soon to perish with the worsening earth in climate change? There is a lot of wealth in this world, and it is extremely unevenly distributed. According to a January Oxfam report, 82 percent of the wealth generated in 2017 went to one percent of the global population.  So why cannot these very rich people do something good to save themselves by saving the degraded earth?

Nevertheless, most of the people in many regions are fated to the many natural disasters with devastation beyond any recoveries. Many lives are lost.  It is expected to be worst in many times unless we repair the earth now in distress ecologically and environmentally.

We all share the earth and so natural disasters wherever they may arise are shared by humanity in a common destiny.  We are all connected in all ways.  We may not know what is next to any society in any region.

There may not be scales of natural disasters we see but the prolonged climate change and rising temperature around 35 degree celcius, it is reported that photosynthesis stops.  The Sabah experience of heat etc as exacerbated by de-forestation since the late sixties around 35 degree celcius and now this temperature stays with us for much longer in the day times with known and unknown consequences.  One thing is for sure, oil palm plantations in millions of acres in Sabah once very cool comparatively in my childhood period does not bring the high temperature and any reduction in the carbon.  Some international bodies think they can mitigate climate change even with millions of acres of oil palms and I think it is not working.  Sabah once land below the wind is no longer that anymore and instead all sorts of devastating climate disasters are occurring regularly with the latest 6 Richter scale earth quake at Ranau and Mount Kinabalu in 2016.

Are we not concerned when we have this article in Daily Express “Sabah acts on climate change through REDD +” but nothing has changed after a decade? Would this be continued in effective when we are also told “30 elephants have died this year” and Fish-kill factors in Lower Kinabatangan (Borneo Post)?  What would happen if the low level of oxygen like in the Lower Kinabatangan occur in our already environment and air?  Daily Express 21 Oct 2018 page 16 “ we should be worried about what we are breathing” cannot be ignored. Still want to do nothing with EcoG in Sabah & Borneo?  Don’t be like “where Hindus prefer to die”DE page 9 (21/10/2018) please.

With rising temperature, our food resources in agriculture, farming and animal husbandry had been adversely affected and only maintained by artificial means for the productivity.  Are we playing dumb to such health hazards?

I would like share an experience in frying prawn crackers which only explode in the right medium and right temperature and nothing can stop that.  When the oil is too hot then the crackers would turn black in a few seconds.  This is symbolic that our existence may soon be like the crackers and nothing can stop the worsening temperature and related pollution unless we act fast with EcoG. 

So if we decide to save ourselves then we must do something ourselves and not  leave it to others especially the various Government and their agencies which have actually failed us in current 60 years.

The normal mentality is that only the Government and their agencies can do something but the reality is that they are too embroiled in other governance matters and questioned politics with low priority and neglect over natural issues of the earth and even do more damages in further exploitation of the earth for greed.

Some may think it would need massive fund to implement such mitigation and corrective measures and where such massive fund can be available?

It is indeed mind boggling that most people are worried by bread and butter issue or rice bowl issues that the earth is further neglected.  

So there must be some sections of people always involved with NGOs would show concern to save ourselves on earth.  We should consider ourselves lucky or even blessed that we have survived without major devastation in natural disasters.  Can we stay complacent for long when the earth we know is largely in question?

So are we prepared to get ourselves involved with EcoG starting with Sabah and Borneo ? Now I would provide a glimpse into how EcoG may appear to concerned parties.

Now may I draw a success story of Grab (MyTeksi) started with RM100,000 in 2012 and rejected by some people then but now it is worth RM25billion.  With this stunning short story, EcoG would do many times more to save the degraded earth (Grab solves the dying Taxi service) and save ourselves (Grab improved mobility only).  So seriously consider EcoG.  EcoG belongs to everyone on earth when Grab only for people on the move.

In EcoGeneration- a coalition of ecologists, consumers and environmentalists is the latest and final global platform to fight climate change to mitigate its effect of rising temperature at boiling point.

 Save the degraded earth to save ourselves.

It is a range of both non business and business components.

Non business is education, awareness, compliance, blue print/research, litigation, guidance/ counselling, monitoring.

Business components include re-forestation (land and swamp), recycling of waste to revenue, renewable clean energy, organic agriculture (food basket), abundant clean water (very scarce in some places), world oxygen network (WON), exhibitions/conferences, fruit trees cultivation,  cultivate seed weeds, maintain the zones including coral reefs for fish bleeding and farming;  (NB: this is not exhaustive yet)

Both these urgent operations to save the damaged earth to save ourselves starting in Borneo would extend to other parts of the globe working together in unison to mitigate the impact of climate change.  EcoGeneration would be in massive businesses to generate clean revenue to maintain the operations to save ourselves.

The initial market as targeted is in Borneo where the pristine rainforests have been ruined by greedy people especially those in power.

Each item in the business sector/component would find the market in Borneo and beyond. Re-forestation a very costly operation would be the catalytic factors to contribute whatever parameters back to nature and endemic plants instead of the devastating mono crop oil palm with little good food value.  Clearing or ridding the industrial/commercial wastes to useful items including the much needed conversion to clean energy for the increasing consumption of energy for the beneficial industries in agriculture, foods, fruits, sea weeds, coral products including medical ingredients and quality fish, all in great demand.

The progress of what EcoGeneration has done in the few months as mooted by me as the founder is impressive as it is ever more  convincing that EcoG can draw in the support from many people in this joint effort of the three major groups of people such as ecologists, consumers, and environmentalists as opposed to certain individual particular group acting on their own without any co-ordination amongst themselves resulting in the lack of achievements as much desired in the fight against climate change.  We need each others within EcoG to share our respective experiences in specific field with others in each other groups.  Then the action well co-ordinated can be better received by the public at large and compliance can be achievable with good results.

The objectives inter alia can be

1.  Make the earth a better place

2. Provide clean and healthy food

3. Provide a cooler environment as it was 70 years ago

4. Save the damaged or degraded earth to save ourselves

5.  Generate clean money from whatever waste or resources largely thrown away and new clean industries.

6.  EcoGeneration once established should be self sustaining and self financed by own revenue  generating projects

7. The future is that we in this generation have done so much damage to the mother earth - God loving and loved domain - for mankind must be restored from all the pollution in land, sea and air for the future and all the generations to come.

Mitigation against climate change can be very massive business when we act globally.

EcoGeneration would engage best passionate people for the non business and the business components.

Non business would be operated in groups registered as Non Government Organisations as needed and be professional managed to achieve results.  

For the business sector/component - the list not exhaustive -  EcoG would use any business vehicle to run them professionally and would go for legal partnerships, legal joint ventures, private limited companies, cooperatives, public companies, public listed companies and any other possibilities as there are cross borders element at all times.

For each of these operation, allocation of fund internally and externally or both would be applied as the needs arise. We would need the kind investors can have passive and active income .

The degraded earth would find a new fresh beginning for humanity.

The inhabitant resigned to climate change be refreshed and  productive.

The pressing message of pollution everywhere get the hearing for recovery.

The revenue so generated would be abundantly beneficially for everyone.

Corporate action can result in positive impact in fighting climate change.

Initially, EcoGeneration would need equity of say USD10m to kick start the movement.   The movement is so huge once it is in operation and the same investor or investors can progress with us as we progress.  Preferential treatment would be given to such early contributors of fund as and when the next item or project is to commence .  

As you may know the startup initial outlay can be substantial to make immediate and urgent impact on earth, I would think we would need USD1billion (various sources) to set up all the infrastructure to be operational and also compensatory fund for the development of land largely in oil palms into other crops and re-forestation.  We may need some loans for certain projects.

Why three groups of people are encouraged to work together?

After attending so many local international conferences since Rio Earth Summit , 1992, my interests in environment had been picking up pace for more than two decades.

Borneo Biodiversity Ecosystem Conservation (BBEC) for a few years, BioBorneo 2015 and Heart of Borneo. – a decade plus IDS seminar on climate change in 2016 as an joint organiser and many other similar forums have further enhanced my consciousness on whatever adverse impact on the earth as created by God.

In all these forums and conferences many would be ecologists, consumers and environmentalists but positive activities amongst us are few in between.

I myself as a founder member in 1980 and still is a member of Sabah Environmental Protection Association (SEPA) plus deputy president of Sabah Consumers Association for a few years and now inaugural founding Chairman of a consumer co-operative namely Koperasi Pengguna Sabah Bhd and author of three environmental books provide me with the much needed inspiration of a vision to save the degraded earth to save ourselves now.  I am also the founding President of Caring Earth Society of Sabah (CARES) since 5 May, 2017 with some very worthy projects.

In fights against the climate change and other related issues like pollution, de-forestation, bleaching of the coral, diminution of the mangrove swamp, declining quality foods, we cannot give up so easily but persevere with all our energy and spirit to overcome the many obstacles largely man-made which in part can be minimised.  We cannot go on losing all our natural treasures within 60 years first with the depleted rainforests and now the domino impact on other equally important treasures which must be retained and maintained to keep us alive.

Greening the planet back to Garden Eden may be impossible but we all have all the resources at our disposal to deal head on Climate change etc or our limited resources as some may perceive may be taken away from us in declining earthly scenarios like we have been told by the experts in those environmental conferences.  So what choice have we – deal with it or lost all the dwindling resources for our present wellbeing right now?

The world is still so rich with many trillionaires and billionaires who may care for their own lives in a degraded earth or lose it all sooner.  What we know so often about billionaires publicly is the worth of known stocks.  What about other undisclosed assets?  What we need is to pool our resources together and in the humane spirit of man, we can give the best in saving the earth to save ourselves.

First EcoG must surmount the perception of availability of saving-earth-fund which can be obtained by crowdfunding with a small process fee and at least we must get ourselves organised in Sabah with the Heart of Borneo in our midst and then canvass for global support for the global benefit of a repaired earth.

There are many people out there especially Christians who always sing and pray that the Glory of God fill the earth?  So how can we say and think in words without any positive action when the earth is very sad in its sorry state as compared to the days of Garden Eden.  Is God not being insulted for His creation?

Those interest to be part of this EcoG can get in touch with me in Facebook-EcoGeneration Sabah Borneo. Give ourselves a “trillion” chance to lead the way forward in EcoG.  Perish not without trying.  So give EcoG a new threshold /frontier a fighting chance.

Joshua Y C Kong 21/10/2018



https://join.8billiontrees.com/page02345?fbclid=IwAR2WF63cXSiV7OVsgKFPE4-j-lHR5kC9e7N5TCopqSHg9zxjBgwvon64X1E