tax will be paid... being nice will help with the fine/penalty

Yeah,... sometimes, there is no chance to be nice. It depends on the system we are being faced with.

5.2.2.2 mentions something of importance here:



Since the forum topic here is 'SGX Counters', let's note that Singapore does not have Dividend Withholding Taxes. Hence, if you bring in Singaporean Dividend payments into Malaysia, those dividends were not subjected to Singaporean tax due to that country's taxation system. From the quote above, I conclude that Malaysia -although no tax was paid in Singapore - considers the dividends to have been taxed in Singapore anyway and therefor Malaysia will not tax these either.

In simpler words, Malaysia considers the Singaporean dividends to have been taxed, albeit the tax was 0. Am I reading this right ?

this is how i read it...

stock dividends are from company profit after tax... so tax has been paid, and these dividends are not taxable in sg locally

our fsi qualifying conditions clearly says if its not taxable in sg, it is exempt from my tax for now... considering the div to have been taxed at zero is incorrect even though the effect is the same

sg reits is more complicated... because the dividends are distributed at gross... so one need to understand the tax notes that goes with each of them as there are conditions where they are taxable...

I am hoping Jake is right,....... ,... because I earn SG divdiends,....

But, I think best is not to remit funds back to Msia. Find ways to spend in Malaysia with a foreign credit card.

swipe foreign card is deemed to have remitted back... its mentioned in the guidelines... no loophole here...

Snapshot of guideline pls 🙏🏻😮‍💨

Thank you for pointing out, bro dwrk,...

Yeah,... need to see the guidelines here, pls share the guidelines,...

...this raises a lot of questions now,... if swiping a foreign card to pay for a product that is used in Malaysia, is this considered as remitted back ?

How abt if the product is to be used overseas ?

Then,... if swiping a foreign card to buy an airticket to travel from KL to Vancouver,... is this called remitted back too ?...

if merchant is Malaysia based and your cc payment goes to their local account... i would say it is remitted back...

doesn't matter if you buy local but use it overseas

so if you swipe your uk card and buy ticket from airasia malaysia, yes remitted back... but not if buy from airasia singapore

Thank you very much for all the above, bro dwrk,.. Ok,...

Looks like we need to buy things from overseas merchants then,... egs :-

1) Buy airtickets from non-Msian-based airlines.
2) Buy items from outside and ship them back to Msia which means we will incur freight charges.
3) Can't think of anything else, but I'm sure as time goes on,... will think of something.

Emm,... if we are sending funds to our friends in Msia, ie to the friend's acct,.. is it still termed as remitted back ? Like.. giving angpows for a major event,...

Bro, going back to your above points, can you help with my additional questions ?

This post has been edited by Hansel: Jun 4 2025, 05:03 PM

keep your div overseas and buy more shares...

sell 1 or 2 of the "original" shares if need money... bring that home instead since capital n gains are not taxable... and you now have new documentation

your angpow gift may be flagged by the bank for aml and your friend issued a show cause letter... i sent waifu 1 kusd was ok... 10 kusd got flagged... had to submit my source of funds and tax records as well as marriage cert to her bank... your angpow is definitely money remitted back but i dunno who bears the tax burden... your friend may get flagged again for random audit by irb for unusual money movement... to you maybe angpow for a big wedding but irb dun care...

ps will try to answer your other questions tomorrow... i wanna read the amended guidelines again to be sure...

For example, we bought a share 10 years ago for 1.00 SGD and it's now 2.50 SGD.

1.50 SGD is capital gains and we can bring this in into Malaysia without taxation. We could show our broker statements as proof.

What about the 1.00 SGD part though? Could the Malaysian tax authority ask us how we earned that original 1.00 SGD 10 years ago and proof that tax has been paid on it ?

Hey.... thanks a lot, bro,....Ok.

Bro,... somehow,.... my instincts tell me,... the officer wouldn't want to spend too much time scrutinising all our documents to determine which are dividends (which are taxable) and which are capital gains (which are non-taxable). They will just tax across the board, all the 'equity-related' funds you declare as remitted back...

And secondly, if really they will scrutinise,... then lots of people would have lots of capital gains to show throughout the years of investing overseas. Furthermore, how are they going to track if we show the same capital gains TWICE ? Are they going to match back our earlier capital gains have have ALREADY BEEN SHOWN ?

What do you guys think ?

It's very messy. That's what I think.
Who keeps records of 10 year trading movements?

Yeah bro,... that's what I think too,...

I believed : the moment you declare you have remitted funds back and the source of the funds is from investments, then they will chk from which ctry.

If they see it's from a ctry that does not impose tax onto dividends and interest, then 'straightaway', they will expect the 'declarer' to include this amt into the net income amt, whereby, the total amt then will be subjected to the tax bracket as per our usual tax calculations. However, if,.......

...Per my earlier question to bro DWRK, since SG's system has already taxed the companies at the company level and does no further tax onto the hands of individuals, and LHDN agrees to this 'having been taxed earlier' arrangement, then okay - we do not have to add the portion of SG company dividends into our net income amt..

I really do not know how will LHDN handle all these complexities,....

For LHDN, it's easy.
As usual, the tax payor has to prove that these monies are not subjected to Malaysian tax.
The onus of proof is on the tax payor.

Emm,... this is easy then. We just take out our brokerage statements to show our capital gains. Capital gains are NOT taxable. So,... is that all ? If it's easy for LHDN, then they just need to accept the brokerage statement. They'll have to accept the statement because it's written there clearly, the buy-low and sell-high figures, and we bring back just the difference.

So,........ is that all ?

I believe that is all (Note:I am not a tax advisor). There are two disadvantages by this approach 1. You are forced to sell the share (or at least part of the holding) in order to separate the capital gain in cash form. 2. Your initial investment is still abroad. This amount might be larger than the capital gain you can prove.

Btw.. let it be clear that my initial investment is completely legit. I gained the funds from selling my share in a private company when that company was sold. All local taxes have been paid on it. It's just that this happened 20 years ago and I did not keep the paper trail ever since. I do still have the sales contract. I wonder if it is possible to discuss my case and potential taxation with LHDN before initiating the remittance and then decide to remit or not based on their response.

This post has been edited by Jake2: Jun 7 2025, 01:03 PM