Speaking to FMT, Subromaniam said this when asked to comment on posts by social media users on being charged GST or having to pay higher prices despite the zero-rating of GST after June 1.
Subromaniam said that reconfiguring a Point of Sale system in line with the zero-rating of the GST would not take too much time and could be done in half a day at most, with many opting to do it after business hours.
“The problem is that some businesses waited until the last minute to engage their vendor to reconfigure their POS systems. If they didn’t make the necessary preparations it is their mistake.”
Subromaniam said the public should lodge complaints with the department so that investigations can be carried out.
“We have to also be fair to the businesses, sometimes it’s a genuine case where there are technical issues, sometimes it could also be that their vendors are unable to come and reconfigure the systems. This is what our investigations will reveal.
“Still, an offence is an offence, but if they genuinely tried but couldn’t comply, we may just give them a compound fine,” he said, adding a compound fine could go up to a maximum of RM15,000.
However, if investigations revealed intentions of profiteering, Customs would take them to court, where they could be fined up to RM30,000 or jailed for up to three years or both, and could also be fined double the amount of tax they collected.
To date, the department had received 26 complaints, but efforts had been made to comply with the zero-rating. He urged the public to call the Customs hotline at 1300 888 500 to report any trader not complying with zero-rated GST.
It is understood that over 450,000 businesses nationwide are registered to collect GST. The government will replace GST with Sales and Services Tax (SST) on Sept 1.