Month: August 2025

E-Invoicing, SEZ, SST and MITRS: Malaysia’s Tax Landscape Is Rapidly Evolving — Are You Ready?

E-Invoicing, SEZ, SST and MITRS: Malaysia’s Tax Landscape Is Rapidly Evolving — Are You Ready?

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Stay Informed with the Latest News in Tax
 

Plan for E-Invoicing, SEZ, SST and MITRS
 

Malaysia’s tax ecosystem is undergoing significant transformation. From the digitalisation of tax processes through e-Invoicing and the advancement of Special Economic Zones (SEZs), to the expansion of the Sales and Service Tax (SST) regime and the rollout of the Malaysian Income Tax Reporting System (MITRS) — businesses face rising compliance demands but also opportunities for strategic advantage.

In this increasingly complex environment, a reactive approach is no longer sufficient. Whether you’re a local player or operating cross-border, 2025 is the time to act decisively.

At BoardRoom, we help you:

  • Understand the latest tax and regulatory developments in Malaysia,
  • Assess what these changes mean for your business,
  • Adapt and grow with confidence through tailored compliance and advisory support.
 

E-Invoicing Deadline Revised — Time to Refocus and Prepare

The Inland Revenue Board of Malaysia (IRBM) has updated e-invoicing deadlines to offer businesses greater compliance flexibility:
 

  • RM1M–RM5M revenue: New deadline is 1 January 2026
  • RM500K–RM1M revenue: New deadline is 1 July 2026
  • Below RM500K: Now exempted (raised from RM150K threshold)


A six-month grace period follows each phase, allowing consolidated and self-billed e-invoices to ease transition. These changes give businesses across industries valuable time to update invoicing systems aligned with the IRB’s MyInvois platform.

At BoardRoom, we simplify e-invoicing adoption through a tailored, end-to-end approach including business impact analysis, system integration, user training, and ongoing post-implementation support. Our services extend to accounting outsourcing, tax advisory, and compliance consultancy — empowering your business to meet regulatory demands confidently and seamlessly.

If your company hasn’t integrated e-invoicing yet, now is the time to act.
 

Malaysia’s Expanded Sales and Service Tax (SST) Effective 1 July 2025 — Is Your Business Ready?

Malaysia is expanding SST coverage from 1 July 2025 to strengthen fiscal resources and support the MADANI framework.

Key updates include:
 

  • Sales Tax: Non-essential goods like king crab, salmon, imported fruits, industrial machinery, and antiques will be taxed at 5% or 10%. Essential goods such as rice, cooking oil, vegetables, and medicine remain zero-rated.
  • Service Tax: New taxable sectors include rental and leasing services (excluding residential and small operators), construction (excluding residential buildings), fee-based financial services, private healthcare and education for non-citizens, and beauty and wellness services from operators with revenue over RM500,000.
  • Compliance: Changes take effect 1 July 2025, with enforcement penalties deferred until 31 December 2025.


Businesses should review registration obligations, adjust pricing, and file bi-monthly returns via MySST.

BoardRoom offers expert guidance to simplify SST compliance. Contact us to assess your readiness for these new requirements.
 

Singapore–Malaysia Special Economic Zone (SEZ): Rethink Your Cross-Border Strategy

The Johor–Singapore Special Economic Zone is progressing, with plans to streamline customs processes, enhance cross-border mobility, and introduce business-friendly incentives. For companies operating across both countries, this is a strategic window to reassess tax structures, supply chains, and regional operations.

Getting ahead of these changes requires more than awareness — it demands coordinated expertise across jurisdictions.

With deep experience in both Malaysia and Singapore, BoardRoom is uniquely positioned to guide businesses through the evolving SEZ landscape with practical, tax-led strategies tailored to your cross-border goals.

Explore how your business can benefit and how BoardRoom can help you lead through change.
 

Malaysian Income Tax Reporting System (MITRS) — Access Now Live

The Malaysian Inland Revenue Board (IRB) officially launched the Malaysian Income Tax Reporting System (MITRS) on 1 April 2025. MITRS is a key milestone in the country’s move toward digital tax compliance and greater financial transparency for corporates.

To stay ahead, businesses must not only comply — they must strategise. At BoardRoom, we go beyond filing support — we deliver strategic tax solutions aligned to your growth goals:
 

  • Digital tax compliance
  • Cross-border structuring & advisory
  • Indirect tax and SST optimisation
 
 

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All rights reserved.

Our mailing address is: [email protected]
 

Why Siloed Service Providers are Holding Your Business Back

Why Siloed Service Providers are Holding Your Business Back

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Integrating your corporate services under one trusted provider is not just about convenience. It is a strategic move that drives cost savings, improves efficiency, and frees your team from unnecessary admin. With a unified approach, you reduce duplicated efforts, streamline communications, and gain clearer oversight across your operations.

As businesses grow, it’s common to bring in different corporate service providers to manage key areas such as incorporation, payroll, accounting, tax, company secretarial work and IPO readiness. While each provider may deliver on their specific responsibilities, they often operate independently.

Without clear communication or coordination between these service providers, important details can be missed, and overall visibility can suffer. This disconnection often leads to slow progress, compliance risks and an inability to scale effectively.

The best way to solve these issues is to consolidate services with a single, trusted partner. The OneBoardRoom Advantage is an integrated model that covers everything from corporate secretarial and payroll to tax, accounting, and share registry, aligning all functions to reduce risk, optimise costs, save valuable time and support strategic growth at every stage of your business.

To move toward a more scalable and resilient operating model, it’s important to first understand why fragmentation happens in the first place.

Why Businesses Get Stuck with Fragmented Support

Engaging different specialists for each business function may seem cost-effective, but fragmentation has long-term costs that are often hidden. These include slow progress caused by misaligned processes, duplicated efforts, and a lack of information sharing and increased risks due to critical gaps in oversight.

Companies can find themselves in this position due to a range of reasons, including:

  • Legacy vendor relationships: Continuing to engage providers without reassessing whether they still meet current needs.
  • Regional expansion: Onboarding of local providers in each market rather than choosing global partners to work across regions.
  • Lack of central oversight: Vendor decisions being made in isolation across the business.
  • Short-term fixes over long-term strategy: Reacting to immediate needs rather than cohesive and strategic planning.

These decisions are often made with the right intentions, but without a long-term view, they can lead to structural inefficiencies that slow growth.

“Business needs evolve significantly as companies grow – from initial setup to regional expansion and preparing for IPOs,” says Angeline Aw, Group Chief Executive Officer at BoardRoom Group. “A service model that worked in the early stages often becomes a limiting factor once you’re managing cross-border teams or investor relations.”

“It’s easy to end up with a patchwork of providers that no longer align with the direction of the business. That’s why it’s critical to regularly reassess your service ecosystem to ensure it continues to support your strategic goals.”

The Hidden Costs of Siloed Service Delivery

The Hidden Costs of Siloed Service Delivery

Businesses that rely on disconnected service providers often find themselves grappling with more than just communication delays. Often, these can create compliance risks, slow down operations, and make it harder for businesses to respond confidently to growth opportunities.

These issues often remain under the radar until they start to impact performance, and by then, the financial and strategic costs can be considerable.

Compliance Gaps

Siloed service delivery can result in missed regulatory filings, inconsistent record-keeping, and gaps in meeting compliance obligations across different jurisdictions. For example, a business with entities across different regions may overlook local filing deadlines or statutory changes if no one is coordinating updates centrally. This may often lead to penalties or reputational risk during regulatory reviews.

“When providers don’t stay aligned, even routine changes can slip through unnoticed,” says Angeline. “This lack of coordination can lead to avoidable regulatory breaches and reputational damage.”

Operational Inefficiency

Corporate secretarial, accounting, tax, and payroll functions are closely linked, as changes in one area (such as director appointments, payroll costs, or financial data) often impact statutory filings, tax calculations, and reporting deadlines across the others. These functions also rely on shared data and aligned timelines. When these services are managed by separate providers without integration, gaps in coordination can emerge, leading to slower processes and heavier administrative workloads.

During quarterly reporting or compliance reviews, businesses often struggle to compile accurate data across service lines. Differences in formats, submission schedules, or interpretations of requirements can delay decision-making and place additional strain on internal teams.

Lack of Strategic Visibility

When data and insights are scattered across various providers, decision-makers lack a clear, unified view of business performance and risks. For instance, fragmented payroll and tax data can make it difficult for a group CFO to assess consolidated headcount, cash flow, or employment costs when preparing for a board meeting or internal budget review.

“It’s incredibly difficult to plan with confidence when critical information is fragmented across different systems and teams,” says Angeline. “Siloed data prevents leaders from seeing the full picture.”

Scalability Issues

As businesses prepare for events like market expansion, M&A, or IPOs, having a single, unified view becomes crucial. When services are fragmented, decision-makers may struggle to pivot quickly or present a cohesive due diligence narrative.

With one partner managing key compliance and operational functions across jurisdictions, businesses benefit from faster onboarding in new markets, better consistency in reporting, and greater agility in responding to evolving regulatory or investor demands. This reduces duplication, shortens timelines, and improves confidence in strategic execution.

The Strategic Advantage of Integrated Corporate Services

The Strategic Advantage of Integrated Corporate Services

Integration isn’t just about fixing inefficiencies – it’s a strategic enabler that gives leaders the clarity, control, and confidence to make faster, better-informed decisions.

“When businesses transition to integrated services, leaders often tell us it gives them the visibility and control over costs and operational efficiency, enabling them to make faster decisions with greater confidence,” Angeline explains.

Unifying all of your key corporate services via the OneBoardRoom Advantage means:

  • Single source of truth: This ensures that your operational data is consistent, reliable, and accessible when and where you need it.
  • Improved compliance and governance: Reduce risk and stay aligned with evolving regulatory requirements.
  • Greater agility: Be ready for scale, to expand into new markets and to respond to stakeholder demands more quickly.
  • Cost and time efficiencies: Lower administrative burden, streamline workflows, and achieve greater value through bundled services.

With a single point of contact, your business gains streamlined communication and accountability, no matter how many markets you operate in. With consistent service across regions, tech-enabled compliance, and tailored advice at every stage, integration supports you to stay ahead of regulatory demands and make confident decisions towards growth.

How BoardRoom Breaks Down Silos and Powers Business Growth

Understanding the value of integration is one thing – putting it into practice is another. That’s where the OneBoardRoom Advantage comes in. BoardRoom’s integrated service is built for businesses at every stage, with the ability to add services as your business grows.

“We support the full business lifecycle across governance, finance and payroll – from startup to IPO and beyond,” Angeline says.

Here’s how the OneBoardRoom Advantage supports businesses at every stage of growth:

Inception

Company incorporation, business structure advisory, license applications, payroll, accounting, and tax setup.

Growth

Integrated support across corporate secretarial, accounting, tax compliance, payroll processing, and employee share plan development.

Expansion

Regional and international scalability through multi-country payroll management, corporate governance advisory, multi-entity accounting and consolidation, cross-border tax advisory and planning, and sustainability reporting for listed entities.

Scale

IPO readiness services, post-IPO corporate governance & secretarial support, share registry management, AGM/EGM meeting services and investor relations.

BoardRoom’s cross-border expertise supports businesses as they expand regionally and internationally. Our 850-strong team combines comprehensive Asia-Pacific knowledge and commercial experience to navigate the complexities of multiple jurisdictions while maintaining a single point of contact.

“Our global teams communicate across functions and with our clients, so everyone stays aligned. That means fewer surprises, clearer reporting, and support that actually feels connected,” Angeline says.

BoardRoom is the partner of choice for more than 7,300 companies, including Fortune 500 multinationals, public firms and private enterprises. With a strong track record as a trusted corporate service provider throughout the Asia-Pacific, we bring over six decades of experience in governance, compliance, and business efficiency.

Our experienced professionals, many of whom have been with us for years, offer deep institutional knowledge that fosters stability and enables us to handle complex client needs with confidence. Supported by a lean, agile organisational structure and advanced technology platforms, we consistently deliver responsive, high-quality services that enhance business performance and drive cost efficiency.

Unlocking Growth Through Integration

In a region as dynamic and complex as Asia-Pacific, any slowdown in momentum can quickly turn from inconvenience to risk.

When critical business functions like tax, accounting, payroll, corporate governance and compliance, company incorporation and sustainability reporting are managed by separate providers who don’t communicate, even high-performing teams can be slowed down by rework, missed details, and competing timelines.

Companies that want to move faster and smarter need more than a collection of vendors – they need a strategic partner. A single provider who understands the business’s entire operating environment can deliver coordinated, cross-functional support that aligns with growth.

Ready to streamline your operations and unlock your next stage of growth? Speak with BoardRoom to discover how integrated corporate services can reduce risk, improve visibility, and give you the confidence to lead with clarity.

Contact BoardRoom for more information:

Angeline Aw

Angeline Aw

Group Chief Executive Officer, BoardRoom Group

E: [email protected]

T: +65 6536 5355

Related Business Insights

Consolidate Corporate Services with BoardRoom — Empower Every Stage of Your Business

Consolidate Corporate Services with BoardRoom — Empower Every Stage of Your Business

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One Partner. Complete Convenience.
 

Business is already complex. Your corporate services shouldn’t be.
 

As your business grows, so does the operational complexity. Growing a business comes with challenges at every stage. Managing multiple siloed providers for corporate secretarial, tax, payroll, accounting, share registry, and sustainability services not only adds complexity but also slows decision-making and increases your risks and costs.

As a valued partner of BoardRoom, you’ve experienced first-hand the proven quality of our services — trusted, reliable, and unrivalled. With the OneBoardRoom Advantage, you’ll get a seamless experience of a single integrated corporate services partner that promises to support you at every phase of your business lifecycle. 
 

Here's how BoardRoom supports your business at every stage: 
 

Support Your Company Inception

Getting your business off the ground involves critical decisions around setup, structure, and compliance and mistakes at this stage can cost time and money. With the OneBoardRoom Advantage we help you get it right from the start with:
 

  • Company incorporation
  • Business structure advisory
  • License application
 

Navigating the Growth Stage

As your business grows, managing compliance, payroll, and tax becomes more complex and harder to coordinate across teams or vendors. We’ll help you stay compliant and operationally efficient through:
 

  • Corporate secretarial services
  • Accounting and tax compliance
  • Payroll setup and processing
  • Employee share plans for start-up retention
 

Advisory During the Expansion Stage

Expanding into new markets brings new challenges from cross-border tax exposure to inconsistent reporting across entities. The OneBoardRoom Advantage helps you to confidently scale with integrated support such as:
 

  • Corporate governance advisory
  • Multi-entity accounting and consolidation
  • Cross-border tax advisory and planning
  • Multi-country payroll management
  • ESG strategy and framework development
  • Employee share plan development
 

Strategic Guidance for Maturity & IPO Readiness

Preparing for IPO or entering a mature growth phase demands tight coordination across governance, reporting, and stakeholder management. We bring everything together to support your next chapter with services including:
 

  • Pre- and post-IPO governance and secretarial support
  • Issuing House and share registry management
  • AGM and EGM meeting services
  • Investor reporting and stakeholder communications
  • Sustainability reporting
  • Employee share plans for listed companies
 
 

With our OneBoardRoom Advantage, your services move in sync. You gain consistency across functions, one point of accountability, and the confidence to scale without the complexity of managing multiple providers.

Simplify, unify, and scale with confidence. Connect with BoardRoom today to consolidate your services and power your business growth without complexity.
 
TALK TO A BOARDROOM EXPERT
 

 

Copyright © 2025 Boardroom Pte Ltd.
All rights reserved.

Our mailing address is: [email protected]