CCM imposes extremely heavy penalties of up to RM5,000 per year for failure of companies to filing their annual returns and accounts.
Many of these companies have failed in their business or are dormant. And unable to pay these penalties.
Suggestion - CCM should give a serious warning and a grace period of one-year to update companies information
Reply
Directors of incorporated companies must ensure that the requirements of the Companies Act 1965 are fully complied with including the requirement to lodge annual returns and accounts with the Registrar of Companies. The Act also has the requirement for every company to appoint a company secretary whose primary function is to advise and ensure that the directors of the company comply with the requirements of the Act.
The failure by many companies to lodge their annual returns and accounts with the Registrar in the past has severely caused the information on companies in the register kept by the Registrar to be out of date and put Malaysia pale in comparison with other jurisdictions like Singapore, Hongkong, Australia and United Kingdom where compliance rate there exceeds 90%.
The case of a company now not having lodged its annual returns and accounts with the Registrar for ten years or more is very rare.
Directors of such companies are advised to quickly comply with the requirements and if they received a notice of offer of compound, due consideration would be given for a reasonable reduction upon appeal with justifiable reasons.
However, if the company has been dormant or has not been in operation for a number of years, application can be made to the Registrar to have the name of the company struck off the register under section 308 of the Act and due consideration would be given if the application fulfill the guidelines issued by SSM.
A copy of the guidelines can be downloaded from SSM's website at www.ssm.com.my
