If you’ve tried buying an item on Shopee on New Year’s Day, you’ll likely have seen a new notice from the app notifying you of a new tax. This should come as no surprise as it was confirmed by the government recently that the Royal Malaysian Customs department will finally start collecting the new Low Value Goods (LVG) tax starting 1 January 2024 after several delays.
With this new taxation implemented, goods imported from overseas that are valued at under RM500 will be subjected to a 10% tax. This obviously means that you’ll be paying more for products from China, Indonesia and other overseas sellers on giant e-commerce sites such as Shopee, Lazada, and more.
As such, Shopee has now started collecting the LVG sales tax for relevant items, but you likely won’t notice it. This is because the platform isn’t listing the tax separately but instead already includes it in the prices displayed, so if you see an item from a China seller that costs RM1.10, for example, it likely is actually being sold for RM1 plus the new tax.
Lazada also seems to be implementing a similar approach for the LVG online sales tax, making the implementation barely noticeable with a “GST included, where applicable” addendum. China-based e-commerce site Aliexpress has also confirmed in its FAQ that it has started collecting the new sales tax to remit to the Malaysian customs.
