Dewan Negara passed five bills

KUALA LUMPUR: The Dewan Negara today passed five bills related to the departure levy, sales tax, goods vehicle levy, windfall profit levy, and service tax.

The bills are the Departure Levy (Amendment) Bill 2022, the Sales Tax (Amendment) Bill 2022, the Goods Vehicle Levy (Amendment) Bill 2022, the Windfall Profit Levy (Amendment) Bill 2022, and the Service Tax (Amendment) Bill 2022.

Deputy Finance Minister 1 Datuk Mohd Shahar Abdullah, when winding up the debate on the Departure Levy (Amendment) Bill 2022, said it was implemented to amend the Departure Levy Act 2019 (Act 813).

"This departure levy is imposed on those leaving Malaysia (to overseas) and it is certain that this levy will enable us to diversify the indirect tax revenue collected by the Customs Department.

"We consider this departure levy rate as fair as those who board economy class flights are only charged RM8 from Malaysia leaving for countries in ASEAN, and RM20 for economy class for non-ASEAN countries.

"For business class, we charge RM50 for ASEAN countries, and RM150 for non-ASEAN countries," he said at the Dewan Negara sitting today.

Meanwhile, he said the Goods Vehicle Levy (Amendment) Bill 2022 was implemented to amend the Goods Vehicle Levy Act 1983 (Act 294), the Windfall Profit Levy (Amendment) Bill 2022 to amend the Windfall Profit Levy Act 1998 (Act 592) and the Service Tax Bill to amend the Service Tax Act 2018 (Act 807).

All five billl amendments were made to include new provisions to improve administration via provisions that allow certain facilitation to be given to taxpayers, especially during public emergencies such as natural disasters, or public health crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

-- BERNAMA