KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 8 ― Putrajaya is empowered to reveal the tax contributions of the Malaysia's richest, an opposition lawmaker insisted today after a deputy minister said the government is unable to do so.
PKR's Kelana Jaya MP, Wong Chen, claimed that Section 138 of the Income Tax Act has no provision that prohibits disclosure of collective tax figures, be it for companies or individuals, contrary to deputy Finance Minister Datuk Ahmad Maslan's position that the same section forbids him to do so.
“Second, Section 138(2)(c) actually allows the minister unfettered powers to disclose whatever information he sees fit,” Wong said in a statement.
Yesterday, Ahmad Maslan told Parliament that he could not disclose information on how much income tax was collectively paid by the richest 20 Malaysian billionaires, citing Section 138 of the Act that he claimed prohibits any such disclosure.
The deputy minister was responding to an earlier point raised by Opposition Leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, who alleged that the rich are pressuring the government to grant concessions on the amount of taxes they have to pay.
“I want to ask among the top 20 billionaires, how much in tax are we getting because we don’t want the rich to be given too much space and flexibility that they can escape paying taxes through loopholes,” Anwar said while debating the amendment bill to the Inland Revenue Board (IRB) Act 1995.
Wong today said the deputy minister had contradicted himself by saying the government has no power to disclose collective tax details of the rich, when Putrajaya routinely releases collective tax revenue data.
“(The) income tax (IRB) is happy to say that it will collect RM140 billion this year from 2.3 million taxpayers and 100,000 companies. That's a collective number. So why can't they announce a collective number of how much the combined 20 richest persons pay?
“To quote X-files: A Minister can say what he wants but 'the truth is still out there',” Wong said.
