“For the year 2019 until April 30, RM16 billion in special dividends was received from Petronas while a total of RM17.1 billion has been refunded to GST and income tax payers,” Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng said in a statement.

For income tax refunds, RM7.6 billion was repaid by the Inland Revenue Board as of end-April. Of this, RM5.2 billion went to 70,205 company cases while the remainder went to 1,186,288 non-company cases.

As for GST refunds, RM9.5 billion was refunded by the Customs Department to 76,002 GST registrants.

The government announced last year that the arrears in GST and income tax refunds involved 121,429 GST registrants and 1,653,786 companies, individuals, societies and foundations taxpayers as of May 31, 2018.

When presenting Budget 2019 on Nov 2 last year, meanwhile, Lim said the government would procure a special dividend of RM30 billion from state oil and gas company Petronas to make the refunds which stood at RM37 billion.

He also said that the refunds would be made in stages.

In his statement today, Lim said the repayment of these tax refunds was proof that the Pakatan Harapan (PH) government had not misappropriated the special dividend from Petronas.

He said it also showed PH’s commitment to fulfilling its promise to return the tax refunds to the people.