KUCHING: The Inland Revenue Board Malaysia (IRB) managed to increase its collection of taxes for the period of January to March this year by 23 per cent compared to the same period last year.
Its chief executive officer Datuk Seri Sabin Samitah who revealed this said the increase was due to better economic situation, good relationship with the local media and improved efficiency among IRB personnel.
“It was the media who had helped IRB to highlight issues pertaining to income tax and assisted in solving related issues,” said Sabin.
He was speaking at an IRB luncheon with the media at a leading hotel here yesterday.
“The collection of taxes also had increased RM9 billion last year to RM123.33 billion, which is an increase of 8.15 per cent compared to 2016.”
“For Sarawak, the number last year also saw an increase of RM5.06 billion compared to RM4.79 billion in 2016,” he revealed.
Sabin thanked the media for working closely with IRB to bring the message of the importance of paying taxes and publishing IRB programmes and events in their papers or other platforms.
“Malaysians now are generally more aware and concerned about declaring their income and this had helped to improve tax collection,” he added.
Sabin also launched the IRB jingle to raise awareness on taxes among Malaysians, sung in English and Malay languages. The 30- to 60-second jingle will also be used ringtones for all IRB official lines.
Also present were IRB Corporate Service Department director Shaik Osman Merican, state IRB director Ramlot Keli and IRB Communication Department director Arief Putera Mohd Sharipudin.
Sabin launches the IRB jingle during the luncheon with media practitioners yesterday.