The Accounting Digest - Malaysia's finance news, insights & opinions

Ban Gambling in Malaysia?

July 15, 2010The Accounting Digest

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A lot of you may agree that gambling is morally incorrect – Especially when we’re living in an Islamic culture that prohibits us from gambling – Legally, at least. If we take a look around us, many of our friends are caught in this habit; some caught lady luck, most lose a big portion of their life savings because of this. In any way, you cannot deny that excessive gambling would shake one’s financials greatly – Whether it’s his savings volume, cash flow or debts owed.

In short, if you’re in Malaysia, it’s unlawful for you to:

Gamble online in any fashion;
Use your credit card, privately labeled debit card or any other foreign cards to gamble online;
Use any of your Malaysian bank account to make transactions to online gambling sites;

In April 2009, The Association of Banks, Malaysia (ABM) disclosed that 0.2% of credit card transactions made from January – February 2009, just FOUR (4) months, are online gambling transactions. While The Malay Mail believes that online gambling may hit up to RM100 billion in 2009, there are no published proof of records by banks or ABM – Reason given, competitiveness.

The Malay Mail also commented that Ahmad Sofian, Federal Criminal Investigation Department principal assistant director SAC declined to comment when “asked if banks had lodged reports with regard to illegal transactions by their clients”. Of course, in the financial and business point of view, who will?

Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) explicitly states that credit card issuers (banks/financial institutions) who offer credit cards to consumers should run due diligence on merchants to check if there are any unlawful activities going on. Should that be considered as consumer protection?

Will online gambling be a problem in Malaysia?

When you take a look at notions passed by other countries, such as the US – “In 2006, the Congress passed the Unlawful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act, which made it illegal for financial institutions to transfer funds between punters and online-gambling sites”. It’s already illegal for Americans then to gamble online – And gambling businesses went elsewhere.

Corporate Tax Conundrums

July 2, 2010The Accounting Digest

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With an ever-increasing cost of domestic living in Malaysia, questions after questions storm the brain, defeating general perceptions and acceptance towards spending. Because almost all conveniences we can find today in and out of a city requires some form of financial base, there’s almost nothing left in this world you can get for free (albeit the oxygen we breathe in). This should be pretty much where our infamous quote comes from:

No money, no talk; no money, no honey.

And so forth.

While we’re not pushing the topic on “How to spend your money wisely” or “How to budget your income” in both the corporate and personal arena, KLM Finance is going to talk about tax conundrums in Malaysia, today. What has tax come to, where is it going, some of the government’s activities on tax and so forth. Read on.

Tax & the Malaysian Government

All of us can bite our nails or quietly shiver in fear on the government’s imposition, rules & regulations on personal tax for that matter; but the question remains: “How well would you spend taxpayers money?” (Click on the link to read news article)

Company Closure: Wind up or Strike Off?

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Closing a company is not as easy as you think it is: It actually requires more time and effort to de-register a company than to register one. We’re talking about Sendirian Berhad (Sdn Bhd) entities here. You should probably ignore the rest. Your company could be dormant due to insolvency (lack of financial resources to [...]

GST – Yes/No?

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There were many responses when the Malaysian government first announced the Financial Budget for Malaysia, year 2010, both good and bad. But when they were undecided about GST, it sparked more conversation on whether it’ll benefit the Rakyat, or further threaten poorer communities in Malaysia. Would you say yes or no? Tell us here!

KPMG – IFRS

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Upon the release of the new IFRS (International Financial Reporting Standards), KPMG has taken the trouble to publish “First Impressions: Financial Instruments Classifications & Measurements” dated July 2009.

GST – What is?

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Malaysia’s budget 2010 reports that the Goods and Services Tax (GST) is currently at the final stage of completing the study on the implementation, where analysts are measuring the social impact of its presence in Malaysia. What’s the meaning of GST imposed in Malaysia?