GST handbooks to be introduced this Saturday

The first batch of some 1,000 simplified handbooks on the Goods and Services Tax (GST) for businesses containing all the basic guidelines will be ready for distribution this Saturday, said the Royal Malaysian Customs Department GST Director, Datuk Subromaniam Tholasy.

"With the simplified guide, businesses should know what they should do.

"The first batch of the free copies would be in English, followed by the Bahasa Malaysia version and probably in other vernacular languages in the near term," he told Bernama on the sidelines of an awareness and training programme on GST here yesterday.

The GST handbook will be launched by the Deputy Finance Minister Datuk Chua Tee Yong in a programme in Bangsar, here, organised by the Secretariat for Empowerment of Indian Entrepreneurs (SEED) on Saturday, with some 1,000 participants expected to turn up.

"As of yesterday, 10,127 businesses had registered for the GST scheme. Some 80 per cent of them are from the small and medium enterprises, mostly from manufaturing-based and services sectors," he said.

The Customs Department has set a goal of attracting 123,000 companies to register for the GST scheme by end-September.