KUALA LUMPUR (Jan 28): The Inland Revenue Board (IRB) has officially launched the Special Voluntary Disclosure Programme for stamp duties. This initiative, following the prime minister’s 2026 New Year mandate, allows taxpayers to settle overdue stamp duties with a 100% penalty waiver.

The programme, which will run for six months from Jan 1 to June 30, is specifically designed for documents (instruments) that were signed or executed between Jan 1, 2023 and Dec 31, 2025, but have not yet been stamped.

No appeal letters need to be submitted, the IRB said in a statement, as the penalty is automatically removed when the stamp duty is paid. And any document settled under this programme will not be audited in the future. The amnesty does not apply to cases involving fraud.

While the penalty will still be displayed on the stamp duty return form or the notice of assessment, it will be automatically waived during the stamp duty payment process, without requiring further action from the payer, the IRB said.

"Taxpayers are advised to submit their stamping applications and make payments as early as possible. This is to ensure that the notice of assessment can be issued and the stamp duty payment can be completed within the designated programme period," it added.

According to the IRB’s FAQ on the programme, it applies to all stamp duty payers, including non-citizens, and applications must be submitted online through the e-Stamp Duty system, as manual submissions are not accepted.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim said at the Prime Minister’s Department’s monthly assembly earlier this month that the six-month voluntary disclosure programme for stamp duties is aimed at encouraging voluntary compliance. The initiative follows the conclusion of the previous Special Voluntary Disclosure Programme (SVDP 2.0), which ran from June 2023 to May 2024.