Kudos to LHDN! 1 person, to be specific...

Kudos is due to Pn Hazal of the LHDN who answered my call on Monday...

Earlier that day I called up the hotline and spoke to a male consultant about the CP38 notice... turns out the amount due was from assessment year 2007, and he read out the statements & transations etc. Apparently I filed the wrong info, saying that I paid 500+ in PCB whereas the system only recorded $51 of PCB (and basically implying that I cheated on my taxes!). I got so peeved at the guy that I got Hubby to email my e-filing for that year, checked my EA statement and asked our Payroll for proof that the payments were made as per the amount declared on the EA (they gave me the receipt nos siap!!!). Voila, the documents have it - I did not lie!!!!

So after lunch I called up the hotline again, and was entertained by Pn Hazal. She very courteously and in a very friendly manner handled my call (which immediately put me in a good mood - I'm a sucker for good customer service), and pulled up every single item she could find that could help us identify where the money went. As it turned out, the info I received about 'it doesn't matter which income tax file number you choose, it'll all be reconciled using your IC no' (which was actually reiterated by the guy I spoke to that morning!) was wrong!!!! Pn Hazal told me I was wrongly informed, and basically I have to ensure that my employer has the most recent no on file, otherwise it may result in my current predicament - for 4 months's PCB, the amount went into my old file no and then de-activated, whereas the rest of the year's payments were channeled into my current no.

She even told me I didn't have to go to any LHDN office to settle the issue! She very kindly said she'd email the results to LHDN Seremban (who issued the notice) to cancel the instruction, and even gave me the emails of the PR officer there (she didn't know who had handled the case, but was sure the PR would channel it to the right person) and the center's email so that I could follow up later. I don't know whether this is the SOP for handling cases like this, but I definitely liked the simplicity in managing and resolving the issue. I emailed both office & PR lady & cc:ed it to Pn Hazal, and the fantastic thing is both she and the PR lady (Pn Maimunah) gave me a call to confirm that they've got my email! Now all I'm waiting for is for the cancellation letter to reach KL, and my faith in the LHDN will definitely improve by leaps and bounds! If all their staff are like these 2 ladies (instead of the guy and the others before him who gave me the wrong info, and the person who mishandled my mom's account for more than a year), then LHDN is definitely going to be an effective, much-improved agency....

Thanks very much Pn Hazal! You really made a great impression on this customer :)