The workshop was officiated by En.Hishamudin Mohamed, Director of Corporate Services, LHDNM and Ms. Foong Yu Wen, Founder and Chief Executive Oficer of SushiVid.
There has always been a grey area in understanding the requirement criteria for influencer contribution to tax. In view of this matter, SushiVid Sdn Bhd, ASEAN's leading Influencer Marketing company together with Lembaga Hasil Dalam Negeri Malaysia (LHDNM) has rolled out an educational complimentary workshop to provide insightful tips and guidance to the influencers and bloggers alike to further understand their responsibilities and rights as Malaysian citizens on tax declaration and benefits.
Through the few recent years, influencer marketing has been on the rise and brands has started to allocate a large section of their marketing budget to engage with influencers and bloggers to market their products and create awareness among their peer markets, followers and readers. Following this growing trend, many individual has decided to make blogging and becoming KOL - Key Opinion Leader a full time career but little did many know that if their income passes a certain threshold, they are also subjected to income tax.
According to LHDN,
"an individual earning more than RM34,000 per annum
(roughly RM2,833.33 per month) after EPF deductions
has to register a tax file."
Some full-time bloggers could easily earn more than RM3,000 per month from sponsored contents, paid reviews or any online businesses but may not be aware that they may be subjected to income tax while some might not know how to fill up their income tax form. These are all common problems faced by citizens who are self-employed as they are not exposed to income tax in comparison to those working for other companies where their income tax will automatically be registered by their company accountant when employed.
"An influencer earning more than RM3,000 a month
from sponsored content, paid reviews or
any form of online businesses via social media
may be subjected to income tax"
The workshop was very informational in terms that we were educated on topics such as;
- benefits of registering a company for our service even though self employed - to enable us to claim our service expenses.
- taxable income - sponsored products or sponsored trips value need to be declared for taxation and are considered a form of income.
- mechanism of registering and submitting tax - how to register for an income tax account and how to fill up income tax form correctly
- tax payment contributes to growth of country - money from tax contributes are utilized to helps to run the country administration, provide infrastructure, healthcare system, etc
- enjoyable benefits from tax contribution - civilians get to enjoy a safe and peaceful, enjoy infrastructures such as the transportation system, healthcare support, education system, etc.
Many of us may have taken for granted what we are able to enjoy right now as the benefits were already present in our country when we were born. Hence it is common that we might not realise that these benefits came from tax contributions of our fellow countryman which without their contributions, our country might not be as advance and as comfortable as it is now. Most importantly, we as citizens were able to enjoy the more than just the human basic needs such as peacefulness and safety that came from the governance of our country police force, education services provided and run by our education ministry, healthcare services, transport infrastructure all ready for our utilization.
These were available thanks to the tax contributions of our fellow countryman, the invisible heroes who helps to contributes towards our basic necessities and advancement of our country. It is with this, I hope we would all realise the importance and fairness of contributing income tax to our country for those who are subjected to income tax contribution according to the guidelines provided by Lembaga Hasil Dalam Negeri Malaysia (LHDNM)
Lastly, a step-by-step guidance of tax declaration and filing process was presented by En.Hishamudin Mohamed, Director of Corporate Services, LHDN. Important knowledge covered were; steps to seclare source of income, tips to fill up the Income Tax Return Form (ITRF), the deadlines for form submission (June every year), as well as guidelines to review and calculate monthly tax deductions for each individual. When registered as an enterprise under SSM, influencers and bloggers alike will also be able to enjoy tax relief up to a certain amount based on total income such as mileage claims, equipment claims, travel claims, rental claims for work purpose.
I know this sounds very new to a lot of influencers but tax submission does not sound as complicated as you think. Check out this guide below for a STEP BY STEP E-Filing Submission and if you are still having some issue and need any guidance or clarification, you can always visit LHDN website to know more or call their enquiry line as listed at the end of this post.
Remember that as Malaysians, we need to be responsible and play our role at contributing towards our country in order for our country to keep growing economically and also advance in building up our nation. Take the necessary action now! 😉
SushiVid
Lembaga Hasil Dalam Negeri
t: +603 - 8911 1000
