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#lhdn
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Six New Tax Reliefs Started Counting on 1 January 2026, and You Claim Them in 2027
The relief list you use for the return you file this year is the year of assessment 2025 list, and nothing on it has changed. Six other reliefs took effect on 1 January 2026 and are being earned right now, on receipts most households are throwing away. They are claimed in the return filed in 2027. These are not proposals: they were enacted as the Finance Act 2025 (Act 874), gazetted on 31 December 2025, and we read them off the statute rather than off the Budget appendices. Childcare is the biggest change: a single permanent RM3,000, plus a new limb covering a care centre registered under the Care Centres Act 1993 for a child up to 12 - though the RM3,000 is per taxpayer, not per child. Relief for early intervention for children with learning disabilities rises from RM6,000 to RM10,000 and now fills the whole medical band. Life insurance relief extends to children, on a four-limb statutory definition. Vaccination relief widens to any vaccine registered with the NPRA. Home CCTV and food waste grinders join the RM2,500 environmental pot. And for Visit Malaysia Year 2026 only, entrance fees to tourist attractions are worth up to RM1,000 - but unlike the 2020-2022 version, hotel stays and tour packages are out. Verified against Act 874 and LHDN's own relief tables on 4 September 2026.
Tenancy Agreement Stamp Duty Malaysia 2026: The RM2,400 Free Band Is Gone, and Long Leases Now Cost 7x
Almost every rental in Malaysia is signed on the same assumption: the tenant pays the stamping, somebody sends it to a runner, and nobody reads the numbers. The numbers changed. The Finance Act 2024 removed the RM2,400 free band from Item 49 of the Stamp Act 1949 and replaced the three term bands with four, in force since 1 January 2025 — so duty now runs from the first ringgit of rent, a five-year lease costs seven times the one-year rate rather than four, and section 36CB puts a RM10 floor under every instrument. The 30-day clock is still there, the counterpart is still RM10 and the Third Schedule still says the landlord pays that one. What is new is that since 1 January 2026 tenancies are self-assessed, which moves the arithmetic from LHDN's desk to yours — with a penalty remission that runs out on 31 December 2026.
Malaysia's e-Invoice in Plain Terms: Who Must Issue One in 2026, Who Is Exempt, and the FY2022 Rule Nobody Mentions
The last phase of Malaysia's e-Invoice rollout started on 1 January 2026, and it caught the smallest businesses — turnover up to RM5 million. Two things about it are widely misunderstood. First, the phase you are in was fixed by your FY2022 numbers and does not move: LHDN determines it from your audited accounts for financial year 2022, or your tax return for year of assessment 2022 if you have none, and states in its own guideline that changes to turnover in later years do not change your obligation. Second, there is a floor. Taxpayers with annual turnover or revenue of less than RM1,000,000 are exempted outright — but the exemption only covers issuing. Anyone selling to you still has to issue an e-Invoice, and any company you own still has to comply on its own timeline.
LHDN's e-Invoice Grace Period Ends 31 December 2026: What Malaysian Businesses Still Need to Fix
The 12-month relaxation period for the final phase of Malaysia's e-Invoice rollout runs out on 31 December 2026. LHDN says it has already traced RM3.5 billion in unreported income from e-Invoice data, and 52,540 taxpayers have filed back-year returns. Here is the official timeline, the RM1 million exemption, the RM10,000 rule, and the voluntary disclosure window that runs to end-2027.