KUALA LUMPUR (Oct 23): The government expects revenue from the goods and services tax (GST) to increase to RM39 billion next year — from RM27 billion this year — and will constitute 3.1% of the nation's gross domestic product, according to the Economic Report 2015/2016.

The increased revenue would offset the contraction in oil-related revenue of the government and raise the share of non-oil revenue to 85.9% from 80.3% in 2015.

The government also made some changes to the GST structure. Some key ones are:
• relief on supply of goods made between and within free zone areas
• transaction between land owner and developer in property development joint venture won't be treated as supply
• increase in zero-rated medicines from 2,900 to 4,215 items, and medical equipment to 128 items
• the supply of e-books and e-journals are now zero-rated.

Meanwhile, the government saw an uptick in the total number of businesses registered under the GST, with 390,378 businesses as at September 2015, compared to 300,811 businesses under the mandatory period which ended on Dec 31 last year.

More than 90% of GST registrants submitted their monthly and quarterly input tax claim returns within the stipulated period — of which 99% were submitted electronically.

However, the refund process for electronic submission took more than 14 working days due to factors like claims made in the wrong taxable period, incorrect or incomplete entries, supplies declared, slow or no response from applicants to queries by GST refund officers, false or doubtful claims, and incorrect or incomplete banking information.

The government also noted that the number of complaints on the GST system has reduced dramatically from 4,564 in April 2015 to 147 in August 2015.