KUALA TERENGGANU – The state government’s decision to exempt assessment tax payment on residential premises from 2018 to 2023 has resulted in Terengganu incurring revenue losses of RM82.5 million.
Wan Sukairi Wan Abdullah, the state’s housing and local government executive councillor, said the assessment tax exemption was in line with PAS’ manifesto in the 2018 general election (GE14).
“As soon as PAS won Terengganu in GE14, we abolished the assessment tax payment to fulfil what was promised.
As a result, the state lost RM82.5 million that should have been collected by the seven local authorities,” he said in response to an oral question from Khazan Che Mat (Seberang Takir-Bersatu) who wanted to know the amount of revenue that the state government should have collected since the implementation of the manifesto, at the state assembly sitting today.
In reply to Khazan’s supplementary question of whether the state government intends to implement targeted assessments in the future, Wan Sukairi said this was being considered, adding that there were several other proposals which would also be reviewed before a final decision is made.
“We have received several suggestions to implement targeted tax assessment based on specific methods as the state is losing a significant amount of revenue,” he said.
Based on data, he said the amount of assessment tax payment that should have been collected in 2018 was RM9.7 million; 2019 (RM12.73 million); 2020 (RM13.87 million); 2021 (RM14.56 million); 2022 (RM15.27 million); and 2023 (RM16.38 million). – November 29, 2023