by ANIS HAZIM / pic MUHD AMIN NAHARUL

THE government will continue to look into ways to widen the country’s tax base as part of its Medium-Term Revenue Strategy, said Finance Minister Tengku Datuk Seri Zafrul Abdul Aziz (picture).

He said that the strategy is to ensure that Malaysia has sufficient revenue to expense for the country’s development in the longer term.

“Our current tax collection over GDP is the lowest in the region. We are lower than any other country in South-East Asia — our tax revenue over GDP is now less than 11.4%,” he told a press conference after attending the Malaysian Banking Conference 2022 today.

Meanwhile, he said implementing the one-off windfall tax or Cukai Makmur is not really effective as it levied on a company’s chargeable income and not its net profit.

“We will continue to look at other ways and please, perhaps if everyone could wait for the Budget 2023 (expected to be tabled on Oct 7) announcements,” he added.

Previously, he was quoted saying that the government has not planned to implement any new taxes such as the GST, windfall tax or inheritance tax soon.

Meanwhile, he noted that Budget 2023 will be focusing on four areas including the people, businesses, the economy and government institutions.

Touching on the weaker ringgit, Tengku Zafrul said that the ringgit is still on the downside due to the interest rate differences between the US and Malaysia.

However, he said that the ringgit has strengthened against currencies such as the British pound and the euro.