Business

Thursday July 16, 2009

Govt sees lower tax collection on weaker export demand


KUALA LUMPUR: Inland Revenue Board (IRB) expects lower tax collection this year compared with last year as some businesses continue to be affected by lower export demand.

Chief executive officer Datuk Hasmah Abdullah said as a concession, IRB was offering a longer instalment period with lower payments to taxpayers, especially those facing financial difficulties.

“We are still expecting a positive growth, although much lower than last year. Last year’s revenue growth was about 10% to 15% (over 2007),” she said after the launch of EON Bank Bhd’s Online Payroll yesterday.

Online Payroll offers services catering for various payroll needs, including salary crediting for employees with EON Bank accounts or MEPS member bank accounts through interbank transfer.

“The new service will allow businesses and companies to make statutory payments for the IRB and Employees Provident Fund through EON Bank’s Internet banking service,” said group consumer banking head Michael Lor.

With the launch of its new service, EON Bank targets by year-end to triple the number of companies using the group’s business Internet banking facilities, now totalling over 8,000.

As collecting agent for the IRB, EON Bank offers services for over-the-counter income tax payment, online income tax payment and online monthly schedular tax deduction.

For the first six months, IRB collected tax amounting to RM6.7bil via seven banks over 1.5 million transactions.

“We are currently in talks with a foreign bank in Malaysia to be our collecting agent,” said Hasmah.

Meanwhile, EON Bank’s loans growth for the first half year was at 3% to 4%, and was on track to meeting its full year target of 6% to 8%, said Lor.

He said the banks’ non-performing loans rate was also declining since March, while deposits enjoyed good growth in the first six months.

“However, we do see higher withdrawals as customers took out their savings to purchase investments such as sukuk and amanah saham which give them higher returns than fixed deposits,” he said.

“We are confident of catching up on the deposits growth in the second half year following the launch of a few new products recently,” he said.

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