KUCHING: The Sarawak Timber Association (STA) will organise two parallel sessions to create awareness and training on the Goods and Services Tax (GST) for its members.
According to the group in a press release yesterday, the objective of these sessions is to aid the government to create awareness on the GST and to fully ensure that members of the STA fully understands the tax before it is implemented.
Back in 2005, the government had announced its intention to replace the current sales and services tax with GST which was supposed to take effect on January 1, 2007 but was subsequently deferred. This deferral is to allow the government to further engage the people, businesses and society to ensure that this GST is well-received by the rakyat and businesses before implementation.
After a careful study of the Discussion Paper on GST for Malaysia, STA submitted its Memorandum on GST for the forest and timber industry in Sarawak to the Tax Review Panel in 2006.
The association believed that the implementation of the GST would leave a significant impact on the operation costs against the basic principle of a GST regime where GST is merely a flow through cost to the businesses of the forest and timber industry.
“Since the submission of the Memorandum, STA has worked very closely with TRP on the development of the GST legislation and industry-specific guidelines in areas for the forestry and timber industry of the state,” it said in its press release.
“Through several discussions as well as joint discussions with other related industries, the TRP has resolved and agreed to most of the identified concerns and issues and GST proposals contained in the STA Memorandum.” The awareness training will be carried out by experienced Customs Officers from the Royal Malaysian Customs Department, Putrajaya which is the agency in charge of implementing GST.
The training will provide an overview of the tax and cover topics on five draft guidelines made available to STA.
The association will be in Bintulu and Miri on October 15 and 16 for the sessions, and will move on to Kuching and Sibu on October 18 and 19.
STA will offer the training sessions free of charge to members of the public on a first come, first served basis due to limited availability of space.
Members of the public who are interested can contact STA at 082-332222.