Malaysian tax relief has a timing problem that catches people every year. The reliefs in the news are almost never the reliefs on the form in front of you.

The return most households file during 2026 is the return for the year of assessment 2025. It uses the year of assessment 2025 relief list, and that list is unchanged. The six items below all take effect from the year of assessment 2026. They are being earned right now, on spending happening this month, and they are claimed in the return filed in 2027.

That gap is the entire practical point of this article. Nothing here needs a decision at a filing counter. It needs a decision about which receipts you keep.

These are not proposals any more. They were enacted as the Finance Act 2025 (Act 874), which received Royal Assent on 27 December 2025 and was published in the Gazette on 31 December 2025. Section 6 of that Act rewrites the personal relief provisions in section 46 of the Income Tax Act 1967, and section 7 rewrites the insurance relief in section 49. Everything below is read off the statute rather than off the Budget 2026 appendices, because in several places the statute is narrower, or more specific, than the summaries that circulated last October.

1. Childcare: RM3,000 becomes permanent, and a second age group is added

The old paragraph 46(1)(r) gave relief on childcare fees for a child aged 6 and below at a registered TASKA or TADIKA, capped at RM2,000, with a further time-bound RM1,000 running for the years of assessment 2020 to 2027.

Act 874 replaces that paragraph outright. From the year of assessment 2026 it is a single permanent RM3,000 on child care fees paid to:

  • a child care centre registered under the Child Care Centre Act 1984 (Act 308), or a kindergarten registered under the Education Act 1996 (Act 550), for a child of the individual aged six years and below; or
  • a care centre registered under the Care Centres Act 1993 (Act 506), for a child of the individual aged twelve years and below.

The second limb is where the new money is. The Budget appendix described it as daily care centres and after-school transit centres, and that is a fair picture of what these places usually are — but the statutory test is not what a centre calls itself on its signboard. It is whether the centre is registered under the Care Centres Act 1993. A parent paying an after-school centre for a nine-year-old had no relief at all before this change, and now has one if, and only if, that registration exists.

Three conditions sit in the statute as provisos, and two of them are routinely left out of summaries:

  • The RM3,000 is per taxpayer, not per child. The proviso states that the maximum applies "notwithstanding that the individual may have more than one child". Two children in daycare do not produce RM6,000.
  • Only one parent claims it. Where a wife living together with her husband is assessed separately for that year, the deduction is allowed either to the husband or to the wife.
  • The receipt has to come from the centre. The claim must be evidenced by a receipt issued by the child care centre, kindergarten or care centre.

Read carefully, the RM3,000 headline is not new money either. Anyone claiming the full amount for the year of assessment 2025 is already claiming RM3,000, because the time-bound RM1,000 is still running. What is new is that the money stops having an expiry date, and that care for primary-school-aged children becomes eligible for the first time.

2. Learning disabilities: the sub-limit rises from RM6,000 to RM10,000

Act 874 amends paragraph 46(1)(ha) by substituting "limited to a maximum of six thousand ringgit" with "limited to a maximum of ten thousand ringgit".

On LHDN's current table this is item 8: expenses for a child aged 18 and below for assessment for the purpose of diagnosing a learning disability, and for early intervention programmes or rehabilitation treatment. It has been capped at RM6,000, sitting inside the RM10,000 medical band that it shares with items 6 and 7.

From the year of assessment 2026 the sub-limit becomes RM10,000, and the conditions the appendix describes cover autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, global developmental delay, intellectual disability, Down syndrome and specific learning disabilities.

The important qualifier is what Act 874 does *not* change. The overall RM10,000 medical band is untouched. The sub-limit now equals the whole band, so a family claiming the full RM10,000 on early intervention has nothing left in that band for serious-disease treatment, fertility treatment, dental treatment, vaccination or a full medical check-up.

3. Life insurance now covers children, and the statute defines "child" in four limbs

Section 7 of Act 874 inserts a new subsection 49(3A): a deduction is allowed where the insurance is contracted for by the individual on the life of the child of the individual. The RM3,000 limit is unchanged. What widens is who can be insured — previously the individual and the spouse only.

The same section inserts subsection 49(5), which defines a child for this purpose in four limbs, not the three that summaries usually give:

  • under the age of eighteen and unmarried;
  • eighteen and above, unmarried, and receiving full-time instruction at any university, college, school or other similar educational establishment;
  • unmarried and serving under articles or indentures with a view to qualifying in a trade or profession; or
  • unmarried and physically or mentally disabled in accordance with any written law.

The third limb is the one that gets dropped. An articled clerk or an indentured apprentice qualifies even though they are not at a university. Subsection 49(6) adds that a child here means a legitimate child or stepchild of the individual or the spouse, or a child adopted in accordance with any written law.

This definition governs the separate RM4,000 education and medical insurance relief as well, and section 8 of Act 874 makes the consequential amendment to section 50 so that a separately assessed spouse is treated correctly.

4. Vaccination: the named list is gone

Vaccination relief of up to RM1,000 for yourself, your spouse or your children has been restricted to eight named vaccines: pneumococcal, HPV, influenza, rotavirus, varicella, meningococcal, Tdap and Covid-19.

Act 874 changes this in two places at once — in the proviso to paragraph 46(1)(c), which covers parents, and in the proviso to paragraph 46(1)(g), which covers self, spouse and children. Both now read that the qualifying vaccination is a vaccine registered with the National Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency.

The precise agency matters, because several Budget summaries said "approved by the Ministry of Health". The Act names the NPRA, which sits under the Ministry of Health and keeps a public product register — so the awkward question at a private clinic about whether a particular jab qualifies is now answerable before you pay, rather than at filing time.

The RM1,000 sub-limit itself is unchanged, and it still sits inside the same RM10,000 medical band as section 2 above.

5. Home CCTV and food waste grinders join a relief you may already be using

Act 874 substitutes paragraph 46(1)(v) entirely. From the year of assessment 2026 that one paragraph covers four kinds of spending:

  • electric vehicle charging facility for your own vehicle, not used for business — installation, rental, purchase including hire purchase, or subscription — for the years of assessment 2023 to 2027;
  • household food waste compost machine — for the years of assessment 2025, 2026 and 2027;
  • household food waste grinder machine, installation or purchase — for the years of assessment 2026 and 2027;
  • closed-circuit television for household use, installation or purchase — for the years of assessment 2026 and 2027.

A new subsection 46(1A) then sets the rules for all four: every claim must be evidenced by a receipt; the compost machine is claimed once, in either the year of assessment 2025, 2026 or 2027; the grinder and the CCTV are claimed once, in either the year of assessment 2026 or 2027; and the total deduction under the whole paragraph is capped at RM2,500.

Note the shape of it. This is one RM2,500 pot with four things now drawing on it, not a new RM2,500. A household that has already spent its RM2,500 on an EV charger has nothing left for a camera set.

6. Attraction tickets, for one year only, and narrower than the relief you remember

Act 874 inserts a new paragraph 46(1)(sa): up to RM1,000 expended in the basis year, "as evidenced by a receipt", on the payment of an entrance fee to a tourist attraction, or for a cultural and arts programme. Section 3(2) of the Act gives this effect for the year of assessment 2026 only — a single year, with nothing after it.

This is a reintroduction rather than an invention, and the version coming back is smaller than the one people remember. LHDN's own archived tables set out what the earlier domestic tourism relief covered:

  • Years of assessment 2020 and 2021: accommodation at premises registered with the Commissioner of Tourism, and entrance fees to tourist attractions.
  • Year of assessment 2022: both of those, plus domestic tour packages bought through a travel agent licensed and registered with the Commissioner of Tourism.

The year of assessment 2026 version keeps only the entrance fees, and adds cultural and arts programmes. Hotel stays do not count. Tour packages do not count. If you are budgeting a domestic holiday around this relief, only the gate charges qualify, which is a much smaller number than the RM1,000 headline suggests.

Two more things the statute does, and does not, say. It requires a receipt — the paragraph says "as evidenced by a receipt", so a torn stub handed back at a turnstile is not obviously sufficient; ask for a receipt at the counter. And the Act does not define "tourist attraction". The list being quoted everywhere — museums, theme parks, national parks, marine parks, zoos, geoparks — comes from the Budget 2026 appendix's illustration of intent, not from the legislation. Until LHDN publishes its year of assessment 2026 guidance, treat that list as a strong indication rather than a closed one.

What LHDN's own page says right now

We re-read hasil.gov.my's Pelepasan Cukai table on 4 September 2026. It opens at Tahun Taksiran 2025 and runs backwards from there through 2024, 2023 and earlier years. There is no year of assessment 2026 table yet.

Item 12 on the year of assessment 2025 list still reads, in the original Malay, "Yuran penghantaran anak berumur 6 tahun dan ke bawah ke taman asuhan kanak-kanak / tadika yang berdaftar", at RM3,000 restricted. Item 8 still shows the RM6,000 learning disability sub-limit. Item 21 is still the RM2,500 line covering only electric vehicle charging and the food waste compost machine, with no grinder and no CCTV.

None of that is out of date, and none of it contradicts anything above. LHDN's table describes the year of assessment 2025, which is the year currently being filed. The gazetted law and the published relief table are simply describing different years. If you go looking for the new wording on LHDN's site today you will not find it, and that is normal — the statute is where it lives until the year of assessment 2026 return opens.

What to do this month

Ask the centre which Act it is registered under, not just whether it is registered. For an under-six, that is the Child Care Centre Act 1984 for a TASKA or the Education Act 1996 for a kindergarten. For a child up to 12, it is the Care Centres Act 1993. This single question decides whether a year of fees is deductible, and it is far easier to ask now than to reconstruct in 2027.

Do not budget on RM3,000 per child. It is RM3,000 per taxpayer however many children are in care, and only one of two separately assessed spouses may claim it.

Get receipts, in the right name, from the right issuer. The childcare relief specifically requires a receipt issued by the centre, and the attractions relief requires a receipt too. A receipt made out to a grandparent or to the child is a problem you cannot fix later.

Decide how the RM2,500 environmental pot gets used before you buy. EV charger, compost machine, food waste grinder and home CCTV all draw on the same RM2,500, and the grinder and camera can only be claimed once across the years of assessment 2026 and 2027.

Keep attraction receipts for the rest of 2026 — but not the hotel bill. This relief is worth up to RM1,000, it currently has no year after it, and accommodation is outside it.

Keep everything for seven years. Section 82A of the Income Tax Act 1967 requires a person who has to furnish a return to keep sufficient documents for seven years from the end of that year of assessment. For year of assessment 2026 spending, that runs to the end of 2033.

Do not restructure anything around a relief. These are deductions against chargeable income, not rebates. A RM3,000 relief is worth RM3,000 multiplied by your marginal rate, which for most households is a good deal less than RM3,000.

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*Cover image: CEphoto, Uwe Aranas, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.*