KUALA LUMPUR, April 2 — Those who bought newspapers from 7-Eleven convenience stores yesterday but were charged a six per cent tax should seek a refund, Deputy Finance Minister Datuk Ahmad Maslan said today.
Ahmad said the 24-hour stores had wrongly charged customers GST on newspapers due to technical issues.
“7-11 has apologised because there were technical problems and it has been fixed. Anyone who paid GST for newspapers, go to 7-Eleven and claim back,” the Pontian MP told Parliament today.
The public does not have to pay GST for newspapers and reading materials.
Yesterday, 7-Eleven posted an apology on its official Facebook page.
“On behalf of 7-Eleven Malaysia Holdings Berhad we would like to issue an apology to all consumers who were affected by the GST pricing error for selected items sold at 7-Eleven Malaysia stores earlier today, 1st April 2015, which occurred due to a technical system error in our point-of-sale system.
“This particularly impacted on some newspaper products which we sell as these incurred a minor increase on the correct price which should not have been charged as newspapers do not attract any GST,” the company which runs a chain of convenience stores.
“As soon as the system error was discovered we immediately took action to withdraw these products from sale so that our customers would not be inconvenienced further,” it said, adding that the revised pricing will be implemented soon.
It also said affected items will not be sold until the system errors have been fully corrected.
The company also requested customers who were impacted by the error to contact it through an email or a private message through its Facebook Page.
