It said no such targets were set for the audit officers, and that the board took any allegations that its staff had behaved in an unprofessional manner for such a purpose seriously.
“IRB would like to inform that the annual tax collection target is set by the government and it is made known to the public during the tabling of the country’s annual budget by the finance minister.
“Therefore, IRB’s initiatives and strategies to achieve the target set had been planned as early as November 2016, and implemented beginning January 2017,” it said in a statement today.
It said all its target initiatives, strategies and status were monitored by the ministry and the IRB’s board members comprising representatives from the public and private sectors.
Without revealing details, it said tax collections thus far for 2017 had shown that there would be more collected compared to last year.
“Besides that, Malaysia’s economic growth of 5.8% in the second quarter of this year, as reported by Bank Negara on 18 August 2017, shows that Malaysia’s economy is able to surpass the previous projection of 4.3% to 4.8% set earlier,” it added.
The Whatsapp message claimed that the finance ministry has set a target for IRB to collect RM127 billion in taxes. It said taxes collected as at Aug 2017 amounted to RM69 billion which was 54% of the amount.
“Thus, keeping valid documents and compliance to accounting-related regulations are very important. Please be prepared to handle difficult tax officers during tax audit as they have a huge pressure to hit their KPI (RM6 mil per officer),” the text said.
IRB also reminded taxpayers to keep records on their incomes and expenses for a period of 7 years, as stipulated under the Income Tax Act 1967, to facilitate checks during an audit by IRB.
It advised the public to contact IRB if they face any issues during the auditing process and lodge a complaint with them by providing the relevant officer’s name, date of audit and the issue that arose during auditing.