The Excise Duties (Exemption) (Amendment) Order 2024 and the Excise Duties (Exemption) (Amendment) Order 2024 (Amendment) Order 2024 introduced changes to the excise duties exemption for certain food and beverage products in Malaysia.
Specifically, the first Order expands the exemption to cover additional premix products with lower sugar content. It also revises the conditions around importing and purchasing exempted goods from a licensed manufacturer.
The second amendment Order then makes minor corrections to the previous amendment, fixing a typo [by substituting for the word “manufacture” the word “manufacturer”], removing incorrect punctuation, and deleting an outdated requirement.
The key purpose is to promote products with reduced sugar content by exempting them from excise duties.
The Excise Duties (Exemption) (Amendment) Order 2024 (Amendment) Order 2024 also removes the requirement to display the Healthier Choice Logo (HCL) that was previously applied to flavoured milk powder with 46.7g per 100g sugar content or less under subitem (f) in column (3).
This means that flavoured milk powder meeting the sugar content threshold will still qualify for excise duty exemption without carrying the HCL logo.
Removing the HCL condition simplifies the standards and reduces the labelling burden for qualifying flavoured milk powder products to access the tax exemption.
Manufacturers can benefit from excise relief without the extra step of obtaining and displaying the voluntary HCL certification.
In summary:
- Flavoured milk powder ≤ 46.7g sugar per 100g was exempted if carrying the HCL logo.
- The latest amendment Order deletes this HCL requirement.
- So, the products still are excise exempt but no longer must be HCL-certified
The amendments expand coverage of qualifying low-sugar foods and update related administrative conditions for traders and manufacturers. The subsequent corrections ensure accurate implementation of the expanded exemption.
References:
Excise Duties (Exemption)(Amendment) Order 2024 (Amendment) Order 2024
Excise Duties (Exemption)(Amendment) Order 2024