By DayakDaily Team
KUCHING, July 23: The Sarawak Shipping Association (SSA) has called for shipping freight within Sarawak to be exempted from the Sales and Service Tax (SST).
In a press release issued today, the SSA highlighted the recent expansion of SST to the logistics and shipping sectors.
The shipping freight between East and West Malaysia was later exempted following strong requests from trade bodies in West Malaysia.
“But they forget SST on shipping freight for movement within Sarawak. Actually, ship-owners are just assisting the government to collect tax — end-users and final consumers are the parties who are actually paying,” it said.
The association also added that new front counter officers have the tendency to implement their own procedures or interpretation of existing rules and regulations and being enforced immediately without notice.
It cited the recent incident on weight issues on K3 — disparity of opinions by customs front counter officers at Kuching and Port Klang for declaring weight of empty containers, which was finally resolved with much deliberation with parties concerned.
Meanwhile, the press release also touched on what transpired during the association’s annual general meeting (AGM) on July 19, which included the amendment of its constitution approved on April 18 to reduce the number of committee members or office bearers to nine.
“It was resolved to re-assign each office bearer’s functions due to the downsizing of the committee. Every member should work hard to play their respective roles towards the realisation of the association’s objectives,” it added. — DayakDaily
