KUALA LUMPUR: Response to the e-Filing system this year has been overwhelming as some 600,000 taxpayers submitted their forms online compared to 100,000 last year.

“We are confident that more people will use e-filing.

“Taxpayers save the hassle of going to the tax office to submit the forms,” Finance Ministry parliamentary secretary Datuk Seri Dr Hilmi Yahaya told Parliament when winding up debate on the Internal Revenue Board of Malaysia (Amendment) 2007 Bill.

On MPs’ queries over insufficient staff at the IRB and complaints of phones left unanswered, he said the board would upgrade the service.

“The offices were packed at the end of April as many taxpayers waited until the last minute to submit their tax forms,” he said.

The bill basically outlined more measures to tackle staff disciplinary problems including the setting up of a disciplinary committee.

Dr Hilmi said IRB was currently using general disciplinary measures but wanted its own discipline committee since it was a board set up to specifically collect taxes.

However, he said, the number of disciplinary cases was still low with 58 cases in 2005, 52 last year and 37 so far this year. The IRB has some 10,000 employees.

As at Tuesday, taxpayers have paid up RM26.05bil to the IRB for this year. The board also refunded RM1.462bil as of last month, said Dr Hilmi.

“We collected RM56.854bilin 2005 but the figure jumped to RM65.738bil last year. The increase is encouraging and shows that IRB is doing its job well,” he said.

The Bill was later passed.