Form BE deadline, 24 days left only!

Listen up! The Form BE tax returns is due this April 30, which is actually a Saturday! (half day)

Central Processing Centre at Pandan Indah, KL
Unlike the previous years where submissions were sent to the branch where your tax file is kept, this year, all self assessment Form BE's, that means nationwide, are to be sent to a central processing unit in KL!

Can you imagine the rush nearer to 30 April? And if you are sending by post, wouldn't you be afraid that the friendly postman may not be able to get it to the central processing centre by 30 April if you didn't give them reasonable delivery time? Not scared yet? Read on....

No more Form J (notice of assessment)
The IRB will no longer issue any Form J to you. Your Form BE will be deemed to be equivalent to your Form J. That's OK. What's not OK following this is...

Pay your tax payable by 30 April!
We used to wait for Form J to be issued by IRB, and then we have 14 days to pay up the taxes due. Not anymore! Since your Form BE is the Form J per se, hence you gotta pay up not later than 30 April. If your payment is late, the IRB can penalise you at 10% of your tax payable and if after 60 days still not paid yet, another 5% tax penalty!
Read this at hasilnet.org.my and The Star article "New ruling insensitive, say taxpayers"

How to pay your tax payable
Well, you can either send your cheque to IRB's Collection branches or make payment through Bumiputra-Commerce Bank (BCB) or Public Bank branches. At the banks, you will need to complete a tax payment slip.
More payment details at hasilnet.org.my

Keeping 7 years of records for tax audits
With self-assessment, the onus is on the tax payer to declare and make his tax payments. Unlike previous tax submissions where you submit proof of your tax deductibles, under self-assessment you are to keep those records for 7 years to enable IRB to audit you.

Get your guide book (buku panduan) at your nearest IRB branch
Arrrgghhh! Pulling your hair on how to complete the Form BE? Actually, the IRB only mailed to us the Form BE, reply envelope and a short explanatory notes booklet. What they didn't send to us is a 60 plus pages guidebook on completing the Form BE. You can get this from your nearest IRB branch but you will need to show your ID and state your tax file number. You will find examples and also worksheets (called HK, for Helaian Kerja) to help you in completing your tax submissions. Using these HKs approprately may help us face our future IRB tax audit a little easier. ;)

Important links:

• Please checkout IRB's site (english) (malay) for more details, if you know what's good for you.
• Download Form BE (note: only the Malay version is accepted for submission. The english version is for reference only)
• link to e-calculator for calculating your YA2004 tax payable
  
• offences, penalties and compounds (note: it doesn't pay to play play with IRB!)
  

Belacan says... "death and taxes, can't run away from them..."