KUALA LUMPUR, April 25 — The Small and Medium Enterprises Association of Malaysia (Samenta) has asked the government to exempt small traders and micro enterprises from the upcoming e-invoice regime.

The e-invoicing system’s implementation is being rolled out gradually, starting with taxpayers with an annual turnover or revenue of more than RM100 million on August 1, 2024, and eventually extending to all taxpayers by July 1, 2025.

President Datuk William Ng said micro enterprises such as barbers, food hawkers and sundry shops would be hard-pressed to issue e-invoices, as they would have to stop frequently to do so and it would lead to long delays for other customers.

“We suggest that any business-to-consumer (B2C) enterprise with revenue under RM300,000 per year be exempted from issuing e-invoices.

“Customers of such micro enterprises should be allowed to issue self-invoice to close the loop,” he said in a statement, adding that mandating e-invoicing across the board may cause “irreversible damage” to the economy.

Ng noted that 76.7 per cent of all businesses are micro enterprises, with revenue under RM300,000 per annum and having few, if any, employees.

He said the current e-invoicing process is too complicated, and the number of data fields, at 55, is far too many.

“No system is fail-proof, and as such, we must balance the need for accuracy and being practical to reduce incidences of non-compliance and business disruption,” he added.

Ng noted that Samenta has conducted seven rounds of e-invoicing seminars since January for its members and other small and medium enterprises (SMEs), numbering over 3,000 SMEs.

“The fear and concerns among the SMEs are real, especially of unintentional non-compliance. As such, we are hopeful that the government will take on an ‘educate and correct’ instead of a ‘fine and penalise’ approach in the first two years of implementation,” he added.

He noted that e-invoicing consulting, information technology system upgrade, training and additional employees could result in additional costs of up to RM200,000 per SME in the first year and up to RM50,000 per annum in subsequent years.

This excludes any penalties and fines for errors and delays in data collection, issuing of e-invoices and submission of consolidated e-invoice, Ng added. — Bernama