The Federal Government should allocate the Tourism Tax revenue to state governments based on the number of registered accommodations rather than an allocation by region, said the State Tourism, Arts, Culture, Multimedia and Communications Committee chairman Dato’ Nolee Ashilin Mohamed Radzi.
Nolee said her proposal was to ensure fairness in terms of the tax collected, as state governments are responsible for the tourism industry’s sustainability. Therefore, the collection should be returned to individual state governments.
“The Tourism Tax, which is scheduled to be implemented on July 1, should be returned to the state governments based on the total tax collected in the states.
“For example, the number of hotels in Perlis is lower. Thus, it’s not fair if the federal government chooses to distribute the overall collection by region, as states in the northern region have more hotels than Perlis. The allocation should be based on the numbers of registered hotels and how much tax has been collected in the state,” she told reporters during a breaking-of-fast dinner with media representatives and tourism industry players, on Sunday, June 18 at Symphony Suites Hotel, Ipoh.
She said, the Perak government suggests that the Federal government organise a dialogue with stakeholders so all parties involved could give their views.
“We (state government) agree with the Tourism Tax implementation, as it can help us to identify unregistered hotels. In Perak, only some 200 hotels are registered, compared to over 600 advertised,” she added.
The dinner ended with Nolee presenting duit raya to about 25 Rohingya children from the Rohingya Society Malaysia Ipoh Branch.
Nabilah Hamudin
