In a bind for filing tax returns in English

MY husband passed away unexpectedly in April last year. Anyone who has experienced a bereavement would know there is little time to grieve because there are things that need immediate attention, including legal matters.

In my case, the main thing on the agenda was income tax since April is the month for filing tax returns. To the Inland Revenue Board (IRB), one has to pay their dues on time even when they are experiencing extreme grief!

I went to the IRB office in Penang for advice after I was told I could not do e-Filing on behalf of my late husband. I was instructed to file his tax returns manually using the hard copy of the BE Form and to mail that together with the supporting documents to the IRB office in Selangor.

I filled up the form and made sure it was mailed within the deadline of April 30, 2017. The manual calculation with all the tax relief and deductions showed an excess amount to be refunded.

After many trips to the IRB office in Penang, and submitting other required documents for evidence, the refund is “still pending” today. Every time I ask about it, the reply is the same: “We will notify you in due time.”

I do not wish to go into the details as the tax assessment for 2016 is not the basis of my complaint here. My real complaint is that while the 2016 tax remained unsolved, the time came to file the 2017 tax returns.

On one of my trips to the IRB office, I was again given a copy of the BE Form for 2017 and told to do the same process. I did this and found there were also excess taxes to be refunded.

The documents were sent to the IRB office in Selangor on April 4 and I presumed that everything would be all right this time. However, on June 8, I received a letter from IRB addressed to my late husband, officiously informing him that he had used the wrong BE Form, indicating that “Borang Bahasa Inggeris tidak boleh diterima”. He was instructed to use the correct form in Bahasa Malaysia and resubmit it “dengan segera (immediately)”.

Honestly, I was not even aware that the BE Form given to me earlier was in English. And even if it was, is it such a grave mistake to warrant a letter of such nature? I checked through my file and, true enough, it was the English version. The irony of it all is that I did not get the form from a supermarket or download it from an unknown website. It was given to me by the IRB officer at the IRB office! I can even prove the date and the name of the officer who gave it to me. The form was also endorsed with a stamp which read “LHDN Pulau Pinang”. Who would have thought a form from the IRB office handed out by its officer could be the wrong one? The whole mistake boils down to language as everything else in the form, including the layout and reference number, was the same!

What is really the reason for not accepting an English version of the form? Don’t the IRB officers understand English at all or are they just refusing to accept English? Is the form processed by computers that cannot read input in English?

If we Malaysians cannot use the English version of the form, then who can – the expatriates or other foreign workers here?

I do not want to question the legalities or IRB’s mandatory requirements. As a responsible, law-abiding citizen, I shall comply with what is required. I just hope that when I resubmit the correct form, it would land on somebody’s desk at the IRB office, and that somebody would look at it immediately. Otherwise, my late husband would be issued with another ultimatum letter.

It is little wonder that our prime minister has called for civil servants to be proficient in English; and if they are not, at least bend the law a bit to accept a form in English!