KUALA LUMPUR, April 1 (Bernama) — With the Goods and Services Tax (GST) coming into force today, operations are carried out by the Royal Customs Department (JKDM) and the Ministry of Domestic Trade, Cooperatives and Consumerism (MDTCC) to ensure compliance by traders.[br]
For today, the approach used by the authorities was to advise traders on the GST implementation.
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Checks were conducted at 23 business outlets at a supermarket near Wangsa Maju here today and they found the price of goods was under control and based on the six per cent GST rate.
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The price tags displayed also stated if the price of the items concerned was ‘inclusive GST 6%’ or ‘0% GS’.
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However, there were complaints from the public on the price of telephone pre-paid top-up cards as they had to pay additional six per cent for GST, despite earlier report stating that there would be no change in the price.
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Federal Territory Customs enforcement officer S Manimaran said it happened due some technical errors and misunderstanding on GST by the telephone top-up vendors.
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“However, we have clarified the matter and there is no GST for telephone top-up cards,” he told reporters here today.
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He said the situation had led to some of the vendors to temporarily stop selling the top-up cards pending further discussion by their management.
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Manimaran said during today’s checks, they also found that the business operators who imposed the GST had all registered with the Customs Department.
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During the first two week of the GST implementation, he said, the focus would be on advising traders to comply with the stipulated regulations.
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Meanwhile, the Domestic Trade, Cooperatives and Consumerism Ministry’s head of Intellectual Property Section (enforcement division), Othman Nawang said he was satisfied with the compliance showed by traders, especially on the display of price tags.
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“Traders are given 14 days from today to comply with the regulation on price tags so that the tagging does not confuse consumers,” he added.
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Most of the customers at the supermarket, when met, said there was no drastic increase in the price of goods and that the increase in the price due to the GST was still reasonable.
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However, it is observed that most of the customers did not check their receipts after making the payment, and they did not seem to be affected much by the GST.
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— BERNAMA
Source : http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v8/ge/newsgeneral.php?id=1122181
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