These professionals are becoming increasingly important in Malaysia now due to the growing complexity of the tax landscape.
According to Programme Leader for Diploma in Taxation at Methodist Pilley Institute (MPI) Connie Ling Kuen Rong, in Taxation, diploma students will first learn to understand the laws.
This will give them a solid foundation on tax law, enabling them to apply the correct tax treatment, ensuring compliance, and optimising financial outcomes for clients.
“Every year after the Budget is announced, there is a new update on the law. Along the way, the tax rate may change, the treatment may change. So, the students must constantly keep themselves up to date, and we will prepare them for this,” she said.
With Malaysia shifting towards digital tax administration, she said there is a growing need for compliance to avoid penalties.
The best example is the implementation of e-invoicing beginning August 2024. Ling explained that with e-invoicing, accounting processes are designed to run in near real time. That means the system requires that invoices be validated by the Inland Revenue Board (IRB) almost immediately.
“Before this, it was based on what we key in, and IRB had nowhere to trace our sales revenue. But now, because it is real time, whenever there is a transaction, we have to produce the e-invoice already. So, IRB can trace our monthly sales,” she explained.
In other words, doing accounting with a tax point of view will help businesses categorise expenses correctly and avoid claiming disallowed expenses, which may trigger an audit by the IRB and lead to penalties.
MPI offered Diploma in Taxation in 2019 following market research on the need to produce graduates with solid Tax Law knowledge. Many audit firms were looking and are still looking for these graduates.
Ling had long experience in taxation when she was in an audit firm in Kuala Lumpur.
She graduated with a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Western Australia (UWA), with taxation as one of her core subjects and a minor in business law. She learned law skills from there.
“What I learned was Australian law, not Malaysian law. I picked up everything when I came back to Malaysia. Basically, once you know the law, you can apply it to every law,” she said, adding that she was groomed by her former audit employer when she came back to Malaysia.
After eight years in the audit firm in Kuala Lumpur, she decided to join MPI to teach Diploma in Taxation at that time.
So, how is it different from Diploma in Accounting? She explained that in Diploma in Accounting, while the focus is on accounting, students still learn about taxation – two types of taxation: Personal Taxation and Corporate Taxation.
However, it was only to provide students with some basic information and understanding of the minor part of laws.
In Diploma in Taxation, students will learn different kinds of laws and learn to apply the right treatment in their accounting work. Diploma in Taxation graduates can choose two different career pathways – accountant or tax agent.
To go into an accountant career, after completing their Diploma, students must take up Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in Accounting and then pursue Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) or Chartered Tax Institute of Malaysia (CTIM).
“However, if you know yourself well and you really want to go for taxation only, after completing your Diploma in Taxation, straight away take CTIM. In this pathway, you are a professional Chartered Tax Agent, so this is the shortest way if you know your goal well.
“However, you cannot be an accountant; you can only be a tax agent because you do not have accounting skills,” she said.
Ling said because Taxation is not an easy programme, students must be skillful in mathematics, possess good English language skills, and be passionate about accounting.
“Meeting the minimum entry requirement might not be enough, and if you do not like accounting, you cannot do tax because you need to understand the law and you need to apply the numbers in,” she said.
Diploma in Taxation is a 2-year programme, and the entry requirement for this programme is a pass in SPM with a minimum of four credits (C), including Maths and English. For STPM, it is a CGP of 2.0 excluding Pengajian Am subject, plus a pass in SPM with credits in Maths and English. For UEC leavers, students must obtain a minimum of three Grade Bs including Maths, plus pass SPM with credits in Maths and English.
Other programmes available at MPI include ACCA, ACCA Foundation in Accountancy, Diploma in Accounting, Diploma in Social Work, Diploma in Business Management, Diploma in Computer Science, Diploma in Early Childhood Education, Diploma in Nursing, Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in Finance and Investment, Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in Accounting, Bachelor of Early Childhood Education (Hons), MUET, and Intensive English.
For more information, contact MPI at 084-322268, or send a WhatsApp enquiry message to 011-55568806, or access our website (www.pilley.edu.my) and our social media platforms.