Personal Income Tax Malaysia Guide for YA2020 [Excel template included!]

It’s that time of the year again, where you scramble to get your receipts in order for personal income tax filing. Starting from 1 March 2021, the Inland Revenue Board of Malaysia (“IRBM”) will open the e-Filing portal once again, for submission of various Income Tax Return Forms for the Year of Assessment (“YA”) 2020 (i.e. Forms E, BE, B, P, BT, M, MT, TF and TP).

If you’re a salaried working adult like me, you would understand the annual pain of gathering long lost receipts, adding up tax reliefs, just to calculate whether you are eligible to get a tax refund or you’d need to cough up more taxes and remit it to the IRBM. It’s always good to file early, to avoid any late filing penalties or system crashes. If you just stepped into the working world, lucky you! Be prepared to face the pain next year.

Generally, the company you’re working for would already deduct monthly tax deductions (“MTD”) from your pay, and remit it to the IRBM on your behalf. The only way for you to get back a bit of what you’ve paid, is through maximising tax reliefs, tax deductions and tax rebates that are available to you.

Personal Income Tax Malaysia Guide for YA2020

Like last year, I’ve upgraded my Excel sheet listing down all the tax reliefs, deductions and rebates in a more organised manner. You may download my Excel spreadsheet here using this link -> Income Tax Calculation (Template for YA2020). Hopefully, it’s more user friendly as compared to the previous versions. If you didn’t really maximise those reliefs last year, fret not, you can plan your expenses more wisely this coming year instead!

Do give comments if there are any errors in the calculation or in the explanations / limitations.

Check out: Personal Income Tax Malaysia Guide for YA2021

Disclaimer: Do note that the above may be inaccurate, due to further change in laws / announcement or typos, so it’s always good to do your own due diligence. Please use it at your own discretion.