Performance of the Royal Malaysian Customs pre-GST era

This study evaluates the performance of the indirect tax administration in Malaysia based on the international benchmarks by means of document analyses of published and unpublished sources and a survey on tax employees.It is discovered that 13 out of 47 tax administration tasks investigated are below the international benchmarks.Out of the 13 items, 5 items involve tax collection processes while another 8 items involve tax administration capabilities.It is found that the under performances of these 13 items are attributable to lack of resources.The result of the document analyses is further supported by the survey on tax employees which indicates that the main source of employees work stress came from inadequate manpower, materials and other resources.The policy implication of this study is that further resources (both in terms of capital and human resources) should be made available to the Royal Malaysian Customs so that the department can perform its tax administration tasks in an efficient and effective manner