PETALING JAYA, Sept 26 — Companies which have been granted tax incentives in the past but has failed to perform will no longer be given the same treatment if they continue to operate the same way in the future.

International Trade and Industry Deputy Minister Ong Kian Ming said this had been agreed to by the Tax Reform Committee (TRC).

"There were proposals put forward at the time we formed the (tax reform) committee, which may involve tax incentives offered by the Malaysian Investment Development Authority (Mida), for example.

"We agreed that if any company that had incentives approved in the past and was more or less still doing the same thing and same way, moving forward, it should not continue to have the incentives perpetually renewed,” he added.

He said this in a press conference when asked to comment on economist Jomo Kwame Sundaram’s suggestion for the government to abolish tax incentives which were no longer relevant.

The press conference was held after the Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers (FMM) Industry 4.0 Conference 2019, here, today.

Yesterday, Jomo was quoted as saying that Malaysia has been offering tax incentives since the 1950s and some companies have been manipulating their accounts to enjoy continuous tax incentives.

"We cannot withdraw the incentives that have been given, but what we can do is to fine tune our incentives policies, going forward.

"But if they bring out high technology products and processes and new capital investment, I think this kind of thing should be encouraged,” Ong added. — Bernama