KUALA LUMPUR (Aug 9): Interest in My EG Services Bhd's (MyEG) shares continued again today, making it the second most active counter on Bursa Malaysia which rose as much as 3.25% earlier this morning, following the passing of the Service Tax Bill 2018 yesterday.

Under the Service Tax Bill 2018, which was read for the third time by Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng before it was passed, a 6% service tax will be charged on any taxable service provided in Malaysia by a registered person in the course of carrying out a business.

The Service Tax Bill forms a part of the country's proposed sales and services tax (SST) that will be implemented from Sept 1 this year. The Parliament had, on Tuesday, passed the Sales Tax Bill 2018.

At 10.12am, the stock pared some of its gains and was two sen or 1.63% higher at RM1.25, with 26.55 million shares traded for a market capitalisation of RM4.44 billion.

In a report on Aug 3, 2018, UOB Kay Hian said the existing infrastructure — MyEG's goods and services tax (GST) monitoring system — could be recalibrated for SST in future, as the tax monitoring system was initially designed to track GST collection and essentially aims to curb tax evasion.

"Should MyEG's tax monitoring system turn obsolete, the company would take on an impairment of approximately RM150 million for the amount it has invested in the system," said the research house.

Noting that MyEG has changed its financial year ending to September from June, UOB Kay Hian said the potential impairment of the tax monitoring system would be booked either in fourth quarter ended June 30, 2018 (4QFY18) or 5QFY18, if there is no resolution made by the government.