GST Training by Malaysia Customs Department

Malaysia  Customs Director-General Datuk Seri Khazali Ahmad said that the department would be conducting a “hand-holding” programme in October 2014 to provide GST registrants with a detailed explanation of the GST.

There will cover 19 industries under the hand-holding programme. These sectors range from agriculture, forestry and fishing to e-Commerce and international services.

Topics to be covered in the hand holding training programme:

• GST specific treatment for the business sector
• implications on cash flow
• impact on pricing policies
• implication to the accounting system
• work flows and process
• documentation requirements particularly tax invoice 
• GST reporting.

GST registration

Businesses can sign up for GST on the GST main website. 

GST Registration opened on June 1.   Todate only only 6,031 out of 300,000 potential registrants had signed up for the GST.  


Businesses are urged to register early, before Dec 31, 2014.  It is mandatory for companies and individual businesses with taxable supplies exceeding RM500,000 annually to register for GST under Section 184 (2) of the GST Act 2014. 


Those who fail to register for GST will face a maximum two-year jail term or a fine not exceeding RM30,0000 or both upon conviction.

The Customs Department will be cross-checking with the National Registration Department and the Companies Commission of Malaysia to ensure that business signing up for the GST are legitimate. The GST system will reject applications from non-existent businesses.


After you register for GST, you will be entitled to attend the hand holding session.

GST registrants are also eligible to apply for a GST e-Voucher from SME Corp worth RM1,000 to purchase a GST compliant software.



Malaysia GST Accounting Software

The GST website has a list of accounting software which has been tested for compliance with Malaysian GST guidelines.

You can also find out more information on approved accounting software from this website : Accounting software Malaysia  .   One such software suitable for Malaysian SMEs and which is  GST ready and GST compliant is MYOB Accounting System.

GST Registration : Status update as at July 2014

According to the Director-General of The Royal Malaysian Customs Department, about 160,000 businesses are expected to register their operations by year-end for implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST)..   However, since the GST registration began on June 1, 2014, only 4,000 businesses had voluntarily registered, with 3,900 granted approval for the new tax regime.

The Department will begin to the compulsory registration in September 2014.  The final date for GST  registration is 31 December 2014.

If you are still adopting a 'wait-and-see' mindset in preparing for GST, please do not wait any longer to be GST compliant. You can avoid bottleneck situations that is likely to happen closer to the implementation date.

It normally takes about 18 months for companies to prepare for GST, but businesses now have only nine months from now to April 1, 2014 to prepare for GST.


Companies needed to train their staff on the GST, acquire GST-compliant accounting software and commence trial runs by January 2015.

 Many businesses are unaware that they need to upgrade their accounting software to comply with the GST,  Such software upgrades cannot be done at the last minute, as extensive preparation and training is required.

GST will affect all businesses, whether they sell goods or provide a service.  It will also impact all parts of operations starting from the IT system, procurement, sales and marketing, the price setting department, supplier and customer relationships to cash flow.



Benefits of  registering for GST, early, rather than later 

• Claim your share of the government grant of  RM150 million to assist SMEs in purchasing the GST compliant accounting software or for upgrades, to be GST compliant.   The grant is in the form of a GST eVoucher worth RM1,000, provided by SME Corp Malaysia.
  The Governemnt grant is to encourage SMEs to use an effective and efficient accounting system as well as increase the GST compliance rate.

• Registered businesses would be taken through a hand-holding training programme where you will be given training on  six modules to prepare them for the GST implementation.   The training grant is worth RM100 million to businesses to send their employees for training in 2014 and 2015 on the new tax regime.

Tax benefits to businesses as an indirect result of  GST implementation 

With the GST implementation, businesses can expect to get additional  corporate tax benefits, such as

1. accelerated capital allowance until the year of assessment 2015 for the cost of purchasing ICT equipment and software
2. tax deduction on expenses incurred for training in accounting and ICT related to GST for the years of assessment 2014 and 2015.
3. Reduction in the corporate tax rate from 20 per cent to 19 per cent from 2016 for small businesses and tax deduction for secretarial fees and tax filing fee from 2015.

Further reading :

National GST Conference 2014 organised by Malaysia's national news agency BERNAMA and Tax Advisory and Management Sdn Bhd (TAMS),