The story started with: I recieved a christmas gift from a friend in US (a set of ladies bag coming with scarf, keychain and a small wristlet. Total of 4 items actually). But according to the officer in custom, eventhough it has been declared as gift. As long as it is duty taxable goods, no matter it is gift or something you purchased, all need to be taxed!
The lady officer seemed to be very "kind" and "nice" to me. She told me: well, I hanya tax atas you punya beg dan saya tak mau check la apa itu beg punya material, I hanya tax you 10% lah! (I only tax on the bag and not the remaining items and I don't want to check what kind of material is the bag made of. I only tax you 10% of the total of that invoice). This is because according to her, any bags which their material are other than kain (cloth), leather, it will be taxed at least 25% and above.
After that I found out she taxed on the total $ of the 4 items + shipping. So I asked her shouldn't she only tax on the total $ of the 4 items? Here's another male officer came and laugh. The "nice" lady explained to me (in a very rude manner): well, if you want to count with me, let me count for you back. First of all, all your items are equal to USD200, then the insurance covered will be USD200 also, shipment is USD40. So total is USD240 which equals to MYR1628. So if I tax 10% on that amount, you need to pay MYR162 instead of MYR88 (Total of USD200 for the 4 items and USD40 for the shipment).
Actually I've asked around a lot of my friend after that. They said it shouldn't be that way. I trusted them as they always import goods from Taiwan due to their business nature. The taxable amount is actually excluded the shipment. Besides that, my other friends who received gift from their friends from UK (5 pieces of bag in a big box) never being taxed as well. Somemore is a very branded bag started with "L". Other friends who made online shopping never face any problem when receiving their goods also.
I'm very sad and disappointed with the makan duit culture in Malaysia. They simply tax. She threaten me that if I didn't want her to tax only 10%, and want to know how exactly they tax me, I need to proceed to another counter and get a declaration form, which will cost me another MYR18 and I need to wait for at least 30 minutes to get it. And after I got the form, they will tax exactly according to the declaration form (all my items will be taxed individually and tax more than 10%). This is crazy! How are they going to tax as all the 4 items are in one price! Wow... that means she is just being very nice to me and only tax a little on me? So I need to thank her? If it is really that way, isn't it means that she is not working according to the rules and regulations? Who's fault? Or I really 'untung' here?
Anyway, I just wanted to let everyone know about this "lovely lady". If you found out that she is one of your relative, neighbor, friend, sibling, wife or mum, shame on you!!!! Oh ya, her name is Zuraidah(猪来的啊).
P/S: Sorry for the bad quality of my camera phone's photo. And you can see, I snap so many pictures of her and she never realized it, that means she didn't really serving me at all.
