Industry players urged to prepare for GST

"The government wants to be more efficient in tax collection, but that doesn't mean that everything must be more expensive.

"The government has actually studied where it should have lesser tax and where it should have more or under-collecting," Malaysian National News Agency (Bernama) general manager Datuk Yong Soo Heong told a media conference on the National GST Conference 2014 Tuesday.

Bernama and Tax Advisory and Management Services Sdn Bhd (TAMS) will jointly organise the conference on July 10-11.

"The implementation of the GST makes our industries and businesses more efficient with clear accounting practices, in order to deal with their foreign counterparts," said Yong.

TAMS executive director Yong Poh Chye said Malaysians were half ready to embrace the new tax system due to lack of information.

"We hope the government and the various consumer bodies and the media can disseminate more information on the benefits of the GST to the country and the people," he said.

Poh Chye said it was very unlikely for the government to increase the GST rate in the near term.

Among the impacts of the GST are a reduction in car prices but higher domestic airfares and commercial property prices, although international airfares and residential properties are not subject to the new tax regime.