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Section 44(6) And All Relevant Sections Of The 1967 Income Tax Act Must Be Amended At Next Month’s Parliamentary Sitting To Classify All Cemeteries As Non-Profit Organisations Fully Exempt From Income Tax Press Statement by Lim Guan Eng (Petaling Jaya, Wednesday): DAP calls on the Finance Ministry to immediately amend section 44(6) and all relevant provisions of the 1967 Income Tax that is used by the Internal Revenue Board (IRB) to collect taxes from Chinese cemeteries. Such amendments should clearly classify all cemeteries regardless of race and religion as non-profit organizations fully exempt from paying income tax. The management of any cemetery should be free to use income received for the betterment of the cemetery in any way it deemed fit without any more interference by the IRB.   MCA Deputy Finance Minister Datuk Dr Ng Yen Yen should not confuse and complicate the matter by talking of non-profit organizations required for tax purposes to spend 50% of their income on charity to qualify for exemption. Why confuse and complicate the matter when it is only a simple and straightforward matter to amend the law? Such an amendment would not only exempt all cemeteries from paying any form of taxes but also bars the IRB from pursuing their legal action to claim taxes from two Chinese cemeteries. After all would a doctor do an angioplasty(balloon) on the heart from the leg if he can do it from the arm or operate the appendix from the when it should be from the front?  Whatever the Income Tax Act 1967 may say, the actual reality is that Chinese cemeteries run by Chinese associations are non-profit in nature set up to provide a final resting place for the dead. This does not include profit-based commercial cemeteries. Therefore the law should reflect this reality of Chinese cemeteries run on a voluntary basis for the Chinese community to bury their dead.  There is no alternative but to amend the law so as to remove any doubts of the tax status of the cemetery. Any failure and delay to amend the law would not only cause confusion but result in increased costs and difficulties for the management of cemeteries. As the MCA representative, Datuk Dr Ng should not burden the cemeteries with time-consuming and expensive compilation of records to prove to the IRB of the use of income obtained. Businessmen have to employ special tax staff just to satisfy the IRB and asking Chinese cemeteries to employ a special tax staff to satisfy the IRB may not practical. Instead Datuk Dr Ng should make it easier for Chinese cemeteries by allowing them to keep records that focus on how to improve and better run the Chinese cemeteries.   DAP can not understand why cemeteries of some religions do not face problems as those faced by the Chinese cemeteries. If Muslim cemeteries can be exempted, why is it that Dr Ng can not apply the same tax principles of exemption on Chinese cemeteries. Why made such a simple matter so complicated and difficult when there is a constitutional requirement that the law must be applied equally to all? (27/10/2004) * Lim Guan Eng, DAP Secretary-General