The complexity of the Malaysian income tax laws: Do we need the rewriting programme?

Complexity of the income tax system is viewed from various perspectives, including the readability of the legislations.Having said that, this study examines the readability of the Income Tax Act 1967 (ITA 1967), its Schedules and Public Rulings issued from the year 2000 to 2013 with the aim to understand the level of readability of such tax documents.This is important since those materials are considered as the main references for taxpayers who are intended to comply with their income tax obligations.Using the four readability measures, namely Flesch Reading Ease Index, Flesch Kincaid Grade Level, average sentence length and percentage of passive sentences, it is found that the ITA 1967, its Schedules and Public Rulings are complex to understand.The findings indicate that the materials under study may need to be rewritten following the exercise of other countries such as the United States of America, Australia and New Zealand.It is hoped that the findings will contribute not only to the body of knowledge but also prompt the tax authority to review the existing income tax legislations