An audit by the Inland Revenue Board (IRB) over the last 8 months has revealed that Malaysia’s biggest bulk of tax dodgers are your friendly doctors. Believe it, RM1.111 billion (US$ 265,500,000) of the total RM1.158 billion (US$ 277,000,000) worth of penalties go to doctors for under-reporting, or flat-out avoiding, the declaration of their earnings.
Oriental Daily News reports that the remaining portion of penalties falls primarily on engineers, followed by architects and finally lawyers. A total of 4,610 professionals had their incomes investigated, although not all were penalized.
Inland Revenue reckons these groups need a taste some tax medicine, and they will be targeting even more moving forward. Expect the audit investigations to amp-up from this month onward.
As they say, there are two certainties in life: death and taxes. Doctors can help you out with one, but they seem to have trouble figuring out the other.
