RM649mil excess tax refunded late

THE Inland Revenue Board was late in refunding a total of RM648.70mil in excess tax payments to taxpayers between 2006 and last year.

The delay, according to the Auditor-General’s Report, was between 10 days and two years for those wo filed their returns manually and up to one year for those who did it through e-filing.

The report was based on an audit carried out on the Internal Revenue Board (IRB) in January and from August to October last year.

It said the delays were due to changes made to the Self-Assessment System, incomplete or inaccurate information provided by the taxpayers and the fact that IRB staff were overburdened with other duties.

“The IRB client charter states that excess tax should be returned to the taxpayer within three months for those doing manual or postal filings or one month for those carrying out e-filing.

“Of 424 transactions checked, 54.5% of them involving RM648.70mil in excess tax payments were not returned to the taxpayers for a period of between 10 days and two years for manual filings and up to one year for e-filings,” the report said.

In the Auditor-General feedback report, the IRB explained that it had supplied a tax payments guideline which was included in the IRB website to avoid delays.

Wednesday October 21, 2009