Businessmen forced to pay extra tax under previous govt

KUALA LUMPUR: Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said that were individual and business people who were forced to pay more taxes than they were required by the previous government.

He said the Pakatan Harapan (PH) government under him would try to retrieve the money but it needed more information from the victims.

“We want to know who forced this, how much they had to pay and if they were required to pay the taxes in full,” Dr Mahathir said at a briefing for RTM and Bernama, which are official media, at his residence near here yesterday.

He added that they were approached by Internal Revenue Board (IRB) (LHDN) to pay up and if they did not, they were blacklisted and had their passports impounded which meant they were barred from leaving the country.

Their account books were also seized and raids were conducted, he said, adding that all these were actions to disrupt their businesses if they did not heed the IRB’s instructions.

Commenting further, Dr Mahathir said the IRB suppressed them even though they had paid taxes and had documents showing proof of payment.

“It was a way of threatening them to prevent them from donating to others such as opposition parties.” he said.

“We know this, although it is not acknowledged, many business people and individuals who had the means to support the opposition party, had visits from IRB officers.

“The visits were a way of preventing them from financing opposition parties,” added the Prime MInister.

In the meantime, Dr Mahathir said he was unhappy with the Barisan Nasional (BN) government’s policy related to banking institutions.

“Right now, to prevent money laundering, banks say they cannot give out loans of more than RM50,000 and this affects businesses. It is disruptive.

“We do not want the banks to impose this condition even if it was a requirement by the previous government.

“The banks should consider each loan application based on the feasibility of the project,” he added. - Bernama