Recently, Dr Shazril, a famous celebrity doctor posted a couple of TikTok clips on his account sharing an incident back in 2020 where he got “busted” by the Inland Revenue Board of Malaysia (LHDN) for evading taxes.
Dr Shazril through his TikTok account @say_shazril shared the incident as a crucial reminder for influencers, YouTubers, TikTokers and anyone doing freelancing who think they can outsmart the LHDN when it comes to tax.
In all three parts of the short clips, he advised everyone to pay their taxes – emphasizing that no one can run away from tax authorities.
“I admit that I had little knowledge about taxes”
Dr Shazril admitted that he had little knowledge about taxes and he never knew that he needed to pay taxes for all his side jobs. Until one day he received a letter from LHDN in October 2020. “I received letters from LHDN twice summoning me to their office. I thought it was a scam,” he shared.
He was approached by an LHDN officer and the person handed him a thick bundle of documents containing all the evidence of his social media campaigns for various brands since 2016.
“The officer asked me if it was me. As I flipped through the documents, I couldn’t deny it because my face was everywhere in the document. I was kantoi-ed!”
The interrogation took hours and the LHDN officer probed into how much he charged for each campaign and his earnings from his TV shows, MyDoctors and Tanya Doktor.
“After calculating, the LHDN officer told me that I had to pay RM50,000!”
“I didn’t have anything to hide. I chose to disclose all the information because I only want to make it easier for both sides.” However, it was hard to put the exact figure as it was years ago.
From their investigation, LHDN discovered that he had assets such as a house, a car and a motorcycle. Thus, they concluded that he earned around RM160,000 annually between 2018 and 2019.
After calculating, the LHDN officer informed him that he needed to pay RM50,000 in taxes. “I almost fainted hearing that amount. How was I going to pay that amount in a month?”
Surprisingly, the LHDN officer handling his case was polite and supportive. Dr. Shazril was given the opportunity to search for receipts that could potentially reduce his tax liability. Dr Shazril managed to lower his tax bill from RM50,000 to RM40,000, which he paid off in several instalments.
From this situation, Dr Shazril has learned the importance of keeping all receipts and organising them in a proper filing for future reference if LHDN need all the receipts to validate your earning.
“My message is please pay your taxes. To all influencers, content creators, YouTubers and TikTokers don’t think you can evade paying taxes.
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