ALMOST 10,000 companies in Malaysia have not registered for the sales and services tax (SST), the Customs Department said today.

Customs director-general Subromaniam Tholasy said so far only 77,451 businesses had registered under SST from the automatic registration from the previous goods and services tax (GST) system to SST.

“We have an estimated 10,000 companies that haven’t registered under SST yet, and for the 77,451 that number might go down, because some registrations may be exempted from SST,” he said to reporters at a press conference after the SST briefing at Subang today.

The Malaysian Insight had reported that the SST will be taxed at 0%, 5% or 10% for goods, while services will be taxed across the board at 6%.

The SST replaces the GST on September 1, fulfilling one of the Pakatan Harapan government’s election promises.

Asking businesses and companies not to worry, Subromaniam said those who had been automatically registered or have mistakenly registered themselves with Customs will be exempted from the SST later if they fulfill the exemption requirements.

“Regardless whether they are applicable or not (for SST), they can register first at our website (due to the shortage of time with SST being implemented in two weeks.)

Subromaniam also said that domestic flights within a state are SST exempted but domestic flights from one state to another have SST imposed.

“That SST exemption is for people for flights within Sabah or within Sarawak.

“For those who take domestic flights within Sabah like from Kota Kinabalu to Tawau or perhaps Kuching to Sibu, there will be no SST.

“But from Kuching to KL or KL to Penang, the flight will be taxed 6 percent SST,” he said, adding that he expects a RM22 billion in revenue to be collected from SST. – August 18, 2018.