Aussie Migration - Tax Clearance

One of the least fun things we had to do before able to leave Malaysia properly is to ensure changes to corresponding address for bank statements, bills, insurance policies, etc...as well as notifying relevant parties of your intention before going off. These varies from painless to the extreme-pain-in-the-butt. Tax clearance could cause you to blow a fuse or two if you don't go prepared.



When I quit my job, I was not aware that my final salary will be held until I go to LHDN and do an official tax clearance exercise with them. My HR department issued me a CP21 Leavers' form instead of the annual EA form. The format is very much similar where my total salary to date and deductions are listed. I then had to bring the form to my home LHDN branch and submit it.

My home branch is in Damansara Perdana and it was the first time I was there. It's a huge beautiful wisma with lots of convenient parking spots within the offices. I brought my past years documents in case they want to do some sort of audit thing but in actual fact it was not needed. After taking a waiting number, I sat down in front of a friendly officer who quickly browsed through my tax history. He announced that everything is in place and I just have to do a quick fill up of the 2011 taksiran to record down all up to date earnings, etc. As it is still in the middle of 2011 when I did this, they do not have a 2011 BE form at that time and just got me a 2010 old form to fill in. Filling it up was a quick affair where I just used my CP21 information to record down my earnings and deductions. Luckily I remembered to also bring my book receipts for 2011 and was able to log them down for rebate.

Once all this is done, the form and the relevant attachments (receipts, CP21, etc) were submitted to the officer and it was done. I will need to wait for a maximum of 30 days to have this processed, however I was told that it should be faster than that. LHDN will issue a Clearance Letter, one sent to me and another to my HR department to advice them on what to do with my final month pay. For most cases, having your taxes done in the middle of the year, you will end up with rebates. So on top of my rebates, I'll be expecting also my final month pay to be untouched. I've yet to receive anything as it's only 2 weeks since I submitted for this so I'll update this post once I see the final result.

Despite this, KK had a different experience altogether. His LHDN home branch is in Seremban and he had to fill the 2011 forms on the spot just like me. Then the lady officer asked him to provide all photostated copies of EA forms and his passport. Because he only brought his originals and did not bring his passport, he had to go for the second time.

During KK's second visit, the lady officer looked at his EA form and told him that KK was missing his 2005 form. KK filled this up on the spot. Then, the officer asked for ALL his receipts since the year he started working. KK asked if he is being audited year by year and at last the lady confirmed it. We were kinda upset with all the runaround we were subjected. During the first visit, she should've told KK that they will be needing to audit him for all the years he worked. If we knew this, we would've come prepared with all the computer receipts, etc. Due to the fact that it was all rushed, there were a few documents which we could not produced. Ended up all those years kena recalculated and kena pay a total of RM2k.

KK managed to get the clearance letter on his 3rd visit. It is good in the sense that he can have his salary released now. For myself, I'm stil waiting. I just hope I don't get held up at the airport later!