“As the Government puts in the building blocks to strengthen our national resiliency, it is critical for companies – including boards – to relook their overall strategy, approach and structure to ensure longer-term business sustainability. With the disruptions brought on by the pandemic in addition to heightened expectations from investors and stakeholders, incorporating an agile and forward-looking model as well as expanded competencies will be important for our economic sectors to thrive again, and thus, create a positive spill-over effect to the people and society.”

Michele Kythe Lim, President/CEO, Institute of Corporate Directors Malaysia

Belanjawan 2022 themed ‘Keluarga Malaysia, Makmur Sejahtera’ was presented by the Finance Minister, Tengku Datuk Seri Zafrul Tengku Abdul Aziz on Friday, October 29. This budget was unveiled against the backdrop of projected economic growth of 3% to 4% this year and 5.5% to 6.5% in 2022, which is encouraging and signals a return to the pre-pandemic annual GDP growth trend. Join us as we explore and discuss the corporate income tax proposals and their impact on businesses moving forward, for boards especially.

ASAITHAMBY PERUMAL
Partner, Ernst & Young Tax Consultants Sdn Bhd

Asaithamby Perumal is a partner in the tax services of Ernst & Young Tax Consultants Sdn Bhd. His professional experience includes providing tax consulting, structuring, tax incentive and compliance services for local and international corporate groups as well as public listed companies.

Asai specializes in providing tax technical and value-added solutions including advising on various tax technical matters. He has worked in significant international tax engagements relating to inbound and outbound investments, withholding tax planning, foreign source income recognition issues among others.

Additionally, Asai has been involved in some of Malaysia’s largest mergers and group reorganization activities. He was involved in the group restructuring projects of a Malaysian business conglomerate associated with automotive franchises, motor trading, property trading, hotels as well as food and beverage (F&B). He has also worked with many government authorities on tax incentives and policy matters.

Asai has previously worked in Australia where he provided tax solutions on capital gains tax, trust tax law, corporate tax, international taxation matters, restructure and overall tax matters of public listed groups.

Asai graduated with a Bachelor of Economics (Hons) from Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia and a Master of Taxation from the University of New South Wales, Australia. He is also a Fellow of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA).

Dr VEERINDERJEET SINGH
ICDM Member (M)
Non-Executive Chairman of Tricor Services (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd and
President of the Malaysian Institute of Accountants (MIA)

Dr Veerinderjeet Singh was elected by the MIA Council as the President on 26 September 2020. Acknowledged as a leading expert in accountancy and taxation, Dr Veerinderjeet Singh commenced his current term on the MIA Council when he was appointed as a member on 25 May 2019.

He is currently the President of The Malaysian Institute of Certified Public Accountants (MICPA) and is a Non-Executive Chairman of Tricor Services (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd. He was also Past President of the Chartered Tax institute of Malaysia (CTIM) from 2007 to 2010.

With over 30 years of diverse experience in the fields of accounting, taxation and commerce, Dr Veerinderjeet has served in the Inland Revenue Department, University of Malaya (as an Associate Professor), Arthur Andersen and Ernst & Young (as a Tax Partner/Executive Director) and authored several influential and authoritative tax publications. Dr Veerinderjeet also sits on the Boards of Malaysian Rating Corporation Berhad, AmBank (M) Berhad and UMW Holdings Berhad. He is also an Adjunct Professor at Monash University, Malaysia and the current Chair of the Monash Business School Industry Advisory Board.

Globally, Dr Veerinderjeet contributes his expertise as a member of the Commission on Taxation of the International Chamber of Commerce based in Paris and a member of the Board of Trustees of the International Bureau of Fiscal Documentation (a tax research and consultancy body) based in Amsterdam.

PANKAJKUMAR A/L BIPINCHANDRA
ICDM Member (M)
INED of MN Holdings Berhad and
Non-Executive MD of Datametrics Research and Information Centre Sdn. Bhd. (DARE)

Pankaj has more than 20 years of experience in investment research, fund management, and corporate strategy. He was formerly the Head of Research of OSK Research, Chief Investment Officer of Kurnia Insurans (M) Bhd and Director of Investment and Corporate Strategy at KSK Group Bhd.

Pankaj is now a columnist in the StarBiz’s Saturday’s “Inside Insight” and has to-date published more than 170 opinion pieces related to the economy, market and sectors as well on issues related to governance and ethics. Since July 2018, he has also been actively involved in providing Continuous Professional Education (CPE) classes, mainly for financial market participants on topics related to the economy, stock market, corporate governance, corporate liability, ethics, financial market products and investment analysis.

Pankaj also sits as an Independent Non-Executive Director of MN Holdings Berhad, a soon-to-be-listed company on Bursa Malaysia ACE market. He is also a Non-Executive Managing Director of Datametrics Research and Information Centre Sdn. Bhd. (DARE), a Malaysian-based think-tank performing research and advocacy for a multitude of topics such as economics and social policy and develop policy recommendations for stakeholders and the Government. He holds a degree in Accounting (Hons) from University Malaya and completed his MBA (Finance) from the same University in 2014.