KUALA LUMPUR, 23 March 2009: Income tax paid by owners of approved permits (APs) for the import of luxury cars cannot be revealed to the public, the Dewan Rakyat was told today.
Deputy Finance Minister Datuk Kong Cho Ha, when winding up debate on the Income Tax Bill (Amendment) 2009, said the confidentiality of this information was provided for under Section 138 of the Income Tax Act 1967.
He said this in reply to a question on the matter from Datuk Ibrahim Ali (Ind-Pasir Mas).
To a supplementary question from Ibrahim as to why English was also used in the text of the bill besides Bahasa Malaysia, Kong said it was a continuation from the 1967 act to preserve the precise meaning of the contents.
He further agreed to Ibrahim’s proposal that this should be rectified (having it completely in Bahasa Malaysia) as soon as possible.
To a proposal by Salahuddin Ayub (Pas-Kubang Kerian) that income tax be reduced to alleviate the burden of workers, Kong said the government reviewed the situation from time to time and did provide tax exemptions and rebates.
He said of the 11 million workers in the country, only 1.1 million paid income tax, while of the 500,000 registered companies, tax revenue only came from 104,000. — Bernama
