TRATAX take on media. Improve existing tax appeal tribunals by allocating more resources, embark on digitalisation and remove procedural obstacles such as requirement to pay tax & penalty before an appeal is heard. The existing tax tribunals – namely Special Commissioners of Income Tax & Customs Appeal Tribunal – are under the purview of Ministry of Finance. Hence these appellate jurisdictions are independent of LHDN & Customs.

The focus should be on addressing the weaknesses of the present tribunals in the spirit of continuous improvement, instead of introducing another platform to hear appeals of the same nature. The latter approach could add complexity to the Malaysian tax regime.