Goods and Services Tax and Sales and Services Tax in Malaysia: A Review of Literature

Abstract

Introduction: Tax is the main source of revenue for the Malaysian government. Thus, to increase the government revenue, Goods Services Tax (GST) was implemented in Malaysia starting from April 2015 to replace the Sales and Services Tax (SST). However, starting from September 2018, the GST has been replaced back by the SST.

Methodology: The study will review the prior literature on the tax reforms. It will analyse data from scholarly journals, newspapers, review articles and other related documents. The focus will be on the implementation of GST and new SST in Malaysia from different stakeholders’ perspective.

Results: The results indicate that SST is much better to match with the Malaysian environment. This is because SST is tax friendly for both the business entities and the people of Malaysia.

Conclusion and Recommendations: The findings would contribute to the literature and explains whether the move made by the Malaysian government to revert to SST is justifiable.