The government has been looking at the RM20 billion shortfall in GST revenue and in Budget 2019 introduced RPGT for more than 5 years (5% for individual 10% for company). In REHDA Institute, Budget 2019 Commentary, the industry panelist agree that there should be a better mechanism to deal with this because more than 5 years tend to be for the long term buyers and generally not the speculative investors.
Datuk Ng Seing Liong, REHDA Institute Trustee mentioned in the panelist discussion on budget 2019 is what shock him is the RPGT (Real Property Gain Tax) after 5 years. He believes that maybe the government should look into to a certain time limit. It could be 10-15 years. He gave the analogy of jail sentence where by there is a timeframe limit.
Mr. Chia Swee How, Executive Director – Business Tax, Deloitte Malaysia believes a good alternative is to increase the rate for the short term holding period for example 2-3 years. He believes that property ownership lasting more than 5 years tend to be for the longer term rather than speculative investment.
Mr. Lee Heng Guie, Executive Director, Socio-Economic Research Centre (SERC) concurs and added that possibly a one time exemption could be made. He highlighted in an example case of 30 years generation property, it may be an issue of finding the S&P documents and the challenge of valuing it.