KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 19 — Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) practitioners who have collected service tax since 2018 are required to submit and remit them back to the government, according to the Ministry of Finance (MoF).

Deputy Finance Minister Lim Hui Ying said that those TCM practitioners who have not collected the tax have to declare it to the Customs Department.

"We are not going to track back. If you have collected from your patients (the service tax), you have to remit to the government whatever you have collected,” she said in a press conference after attending the Creative KL Grants Programme and Urban Challenge Award Ceremony here today.

She explained that TCM practitioners have been included in the service tax since 2018 as those that have RM500,000 in revenue in a year are supposed to register and pay the tax accordingly.

"Not only Chinese TCM but there are other seven services also recognised by Ministry of Health (MoH), so that is why we are meeting them and MoH, as the regulator, have recognised these seven categories to be exempted from the service tax,” she said.

Earlier, Finance Minister II Datuk Seri Amir Hamzah Azizan announced that TCM practitioners who are registered under the T&CM Act 2016 [Act 775] will be exempted from the eight per cent service tax.

As long as the TCM practitioners are registered with the Act under the Health Ministry, they will be exempted from the service tax that will come into effect on March 1, 2024.

He said in line with this decision, TCM practitioners who have registered with the Act do not need to register with the Customs Department and subsequently do not need to impose the service tax on the following services: Malay traditional medicine, Chinese traditional medicine, Indian traditional medicine, homoeopathy, chiropractic, osteopathy, and Islamic medical practices.

On the Creative KL Grants Programme and Urban Challenge Award Ceremony, a total of 24 projects were approved under the Creative KL Grants Programme in 2023, while in the Urban Challenge, there are eight projects overall.

Three projects have won the grand prize of RM200,000 while another five projects received the consolation prize of RM40,000.

The Kuala Lumpur Creative and Cultural District (KLCCD) is set to become a transformative catalyst for emerging creative and innovation economies, thanks to a RM20 million injection from the Ministry of Finance as per Budget 2024.

This is a continuation of an allocation from Budget 2023 which includes RM4 million in awarded grants aimed at enhancing liveability and promoting creative and cultural sectors in KLCCD. — Bernama