People shop at Kinta City Aeon in Ipoh June 1. — Picture by Marcus Pheong

KUALA LUMPUR, June 1 — Lifting the Goods and Services Tax (GST) and replacing it with the Sales and Services Tax (SST) from September 1 onwards will not affect the jobs of GST agents, Veerinderjeet Singh told Malay Mail.

The group chairman of Axcelasia Inc, an integrated professional services group that provides tax advisory among others, said there were only about 3,000 registered GST agents in the country, of which he pointed out that most also doubled up as income tax agents.

“There are very few practitioners who are focused on GST. Most handle both income tax and GST related-work,” he said.

Furthermore, Veerinderjeet said GST agents were only needed during the height of the introduction of the consumer-based tax.

He added that companies were able to file their taxes on their own after that period.

“So, essentially, there were really no substantial jobs created,” he said.

In terms of prepping for the SST, Veerinderjeet said agents can be re-trained easily by attending day courses.

“As for cost, it won’t be substantial as there are always changes in tax laws via the annual Budget and so there will be public seminars as well as internal training sessions to build knowledge and capacity,” he said.

Thus, he said the need for a licensed GST agent in the past was unnecessary, adding that existing tax practitioners could easily handle such matters.

“It is my hope that the new SST will not reintroduce licensing for SST agents.

“In fact, under the previous SST system, there was no such thing a licensed SST agent,” he said.

Effective June 1, Putrajaya announced that GST will be zero-rated before being scrapped and replaced with the SST.

The rate for the SST has yet to be announced.

Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng said the move will result in RM17 billion being released to ordinary Malaysians for the rest of the year.

GST has been regarded as one of the primary contributors to the increase in living cost among the middle income group.