Appealing an LHDN Tax Assessment

The single fact that decides most Malaysian tax appeals is not in the appeal provisions at all. It sits in s.103(1) of the Income Tax Act 1967: tax under an assessment is due and payable on the due date whether or not that person appeals against the assessment. Section 103(2) repeats it for audit, best-judgment and increased assessments. And s.106(3) closes the loop — in recovery proceedings the court shall not entertain any plea that the amount is excessive, incorrectly assessed or under appeal.

So an appeal buys you a review. It does not buy you time. Unpaid tax picks up a 10% increase under s.103(3) or (5) while the appeal runs, remittable only at the Director General’s discretion for good cause under s.103(9).

What is actually appealable

Section 99(1) gives a right of appeal to a person aggrieved by an assessment made in respect of him. But s.99(4) carves out the two commonest documents in a self-assessment system:

• a deemed assessment under s.90(1) — your own return, deemed to be an assessment on the day it is filed; and
• a deemed assessment on an amended return under s.91A.

You cannot appeal your own numbers. The exception is narrow: you may appeal a deemed assessment where you disagree with the treatment in a Public Ruling, or with the Director General’s position, ruling or practice prevailing when the assessment was made — a private or advance ruling, an LHDN guideline, a decided SCIT or court case, or another written statement (PR 7/2020, para 4.2).

What is squarely appealable: an assessment, additional assessment, advance assessment or notice of non-chargeability raised out of an audit or investigation, and a best-judgment assessment under s.90(3) or s.91(1). A composite assessment under s.96A is not — it is issued only after agreement has already been reached.

The 30-day clock, and what it runs from

The clock runs from service of the notice of assessment, not from the date you open the envelope and not from the Surat Penyelesaian Kes that preceded it. Thirty days. Two variations:

• Advance assessment (s.92): the window is instead the first three months of the following year of assessment.
• Best-judgment assessment on a non-filer (s.90(3)): for a company, LLP, trust body or co-operative, s.99(1A) requires the outstanding return to be filed together with Form Q, inside the same 30 days. Form Q alone is not an appeal.

Form Q is more procedural than people expect

Form Q is CP 14, currently Pin. 1/2025, prescribed under s.152. The traps are administrative, and each is fatal on its own.

Requirement	Source
Four copies per year of assessment — one original, three photocopies	PR 7/2020 para 7.1
A separate notice for every year of assessment	Form CP 14, note (i)
Signed by the person assessed — for a company or LLP, the person authorised under s.75 or s.75B	PR 7/2020 para 7.3.3
Not signed by a tax agent or an advocate	PR 7/2020 para 7.4
Not bundled with other documents; grounds of appeal stated in full	PR 7/2020 paras 7.2, 8.1
Email and electronic submission are not accepted	LHDN appeal page, updated 25 June 2026
An incomplete Form Q is returned to the appellant	PR 7/2020 para 7.5

That last combination is the one that bites. A Form Q returned for incompleteness on day 28 leaves you two days, and the electronic channel every other LHDN filing now uses is closed to you.

There is not one Form Q but five — separate versions for the Income Tax Act 1967, the Real Property Gains Tax Act 1976, the Petroleum (Income Tax) Act 1967, s.109H withholding tax cases and s.6D of the Labuan Business Activity Tax Act 1990. RPGT appeals are not a separate regime: s.18 of the RPGT Act applies ss.99 to 102 and Schedule 5 with the necessary modifications.

Missing the 30 days: Form N

A late appeal is made by applying for an extension of time under s.100, using Form N — two copies per year of assessment, also paper only. Since YA2020 the application must be made within seven years after the end of the 30-day period. For years of assessment before 2020 no outer limit was prescribed, which is why older guidance shows none.

If the Director General is satisfied there was reasonable cause, he extends the period and issues Form CP15A, which gives you 30 days from its date to lodge Form Q. If he is not satisfied, s.100(2)(b) requires him to forward the application to the Secretary to the Special Commissioners together with Form CP15B, his statement of reasons. You then have 21 days to make written representations. One Special Commissioner decides, and that decision is final — there is no appeal from it.

The s.101 review, and two silent deadlines

On receipt of the notice of appeal the Director General must review the assessment within twelve months (s.101(1)). He may apply to the Minister for an extension no later than 30 days before that period expires, and the Minister may grant up to six further months (ss.101(1A) and (1B)). The Minister’s decision is final.

Two subsections inside s.101 convert silence into a binding settlement:

• s.101(3) — where you reach an oral agreement and LHDN serves a written confirmation, the agreement becomes binding unless you repudiate it in writing within 21 days.
• s.101(4) — where LHDN serves written proposals to confirm, reduce, increase or discharge the assessment and you neither accept nor reject them, they are deemed accepted after 30 days.

A deemed agreement can be set aside, but only by applying to a Special Commissioner within 30 days of the deemed agreement (s.101(5)), and again that decision is final.

The Dispute Resolution Department and PRP

Between filing and the Special Commissioners sits a stage almost no competitor page describes. Prosiding Resolusi Pertikaian (PRP) is LHDN’s alternative dispute resolution platform, introduced on 1 July 2013, in which the Jabatan Resolusi Pertikaian (JRP) or the relevant State Director’s Office acts as a neutral intermediary to reach an out-of-court settlement before the case is sent to the Special Commissioners.

You can request a session in writing, by letter or email, as soon as you receive the branch letter acknowledging your Form Q. JRP itself handles files held by the Multinational Tax, Special Industry, Large Taxpayer and Investigation branches and the Special Operations and Special Task departments; everything else goes to the State Director’s Office. PRP covers not only s.99 appeals but s.97A non-chargeability cases, s.109H withholding appeals, s.43 petroleum appeals, s.18 RPGT appeals, and relief applications under ss.131 and 131A.

The published Garis Panduan Prosiding Resolusi Pertikaian is dated March 2019 and still cross-refers to Public Ruling 12/2017, which PR 7/2020 superseded. Treat the procedure as current and the citation as stale.

The Special Commissioners

If no agreement is reached, the Director General sends the appeal forward under s.102, and Schedule 5 governs from there.

• Composition: three Special Commissioners, at least one with judicial or legal experience — but para 1A lets the Chairman direct that the appeal be heard by a single member for expedition.
• Notice: at least 28 days of the date and place (para 8). Sittings are held in Ipoh, Kota Kinabalu, Kuala Lumpur, Kuching, Malacca and Penang.
• Onus: para 13 puts the burden of proving the assessment excessive or erroneous squarely on the appellant.
• Privacy: proceedings are heard in camera (para 43) — unless the Director General applies for a public hearing, in which case the Commissioners shall so direct, over your objection.
• Costs: no order as to costs is made except in one case — a vexatious or frivolous appeal, where para 29 allows costs to the Commissioners of up to RM5,000.

The outcome is a deciding order which confirms or discharges the assessment, or directs the Director General to amend it (para 26).

The High Court, and where it stops

Either party may appeal to the High Court on a question of law only (Schedule 5, para 34(1)). The mechanics are tight.

Step	Deadline
File notice of appeal with the Secretary	21 days from the date of the decision
Extend a copy to the High Court registry, serve a duplicate on every other party, and apply in writing for the notes of proceedings and grounds of decision	the same 21 days
File the record of appeal in the High Court	60 days from filing the notice of appeal
Respondent’s objection to the draft index of documents	48 hours

The record must be filed within the 60 days even if the notes of proceedings or grounds of decision are not ready; they follow as a supplementary record (para 34A(3) and (4)). The High Court may extend the time to file the notice of appeal (para 34(7)). From there, para 41 gives the same rights of further appeal as exist from its appellate civil jurisdiction — Court of Appeal, then Federal Court.

The other ladders

Stamp duty does not touch the Special Commissioners at all: s.38A of the Stamp Act 1949 gives a 30-day notice of objection to the Collector, and s.39 then gives 21 days to appeal to the High Court — expressly upon payment of duty in conformity with the decision. Pay first, argue after.

Where the assessment turns on a treaty issue, s.102(1A) suspends the appeal: while a mutual agreement procedure application on the same ground is running, no appeal may be sent forward, and after the MAP determination you have 30 days to ask the Director General to forward it, which he must then do within three months.

Appeal or relief?

Where the problem is your own return rather than LHDN’s assessment, the appeal route is closed and the relief route is open.

Route	Covers	Time limit
s.131	error or mistake in your own return	5 years after the end of the year of assessment in which the deemed assessment was made
s.131A	not an error — a gazetted exemption, incentive approval or deduction obtained after filing	5 years from the later of gazette or approval; 1 year for the withholding-payment limb
s.97A(5)	amending a return where there is no chargeable income	6 months from filing, for error or mistake

Relief is applied for by letter or Form CP15C. Two conditions catch people: it is refused where the return followed LHDN’s prevailing position — so you cannot use relief to relitigate a Public Ruling — and all tax assessed must already be paid. If relief is refused, you have six months to ask in writing that the application be sent to the Special Commissioners; LHDN must forward it within three months.

Common mistakes

Treating the appeal as a stay of payment. It is not, and s.106(3) removes the argument entirely from recovery proceedings. Budget for the tax and the 10%.

Appealing your own deemed assessment. Unless you are disputing a published LHDN position, s.99(4) shuts you out — the route is s.131 relief, on a five-year clock, and it requires the tax to be paid first.

Letting the tax agent sign Form Q. PR 7/2020 para 7.4 prohibits it. The agent can appear at the hearing; he cannot sign the notice.

Emailing Form Q. LHDN’s own page says, in capitals, that submission by email or electronic medium is not accepted.

Ignoring a written proposal from LHDN. Thirty days of silence under s.101(4) is a settlement, not a holding position.

Filing Form Q alone against a s.90(3) best-judgment assessment. For a company, s.99(1A) requires the outstanding return to go with it.

What’s next

If a notice of assessment has just landed, diary the 30 days from the date of service, decide whether the dispute is about LHDN’s assessment (Form Q) or your own return (s.131 relief), and price the tax you will have to pay regardless.

If Form Q is already in, ask the branch for the acknowledgement letter and use it to request a PRP session — the stage at which most disputes actually end.

If the finding came out of an audit, read surviving an LHDN tax audit alongside this page: the s.113(2) penalty is often a bigger number than the tax in dispute, and it is separately remittable under s.124(3).