Malaysia's stamp duty process is changing with the rollout of the Sistem Taksir Sendiri Duti Setem (STSDS), a self-assessment system introduced by LHDN starting 1 January 2026. Under this system, the duty payer, or an agent appointed by the duty payer, must calculate and declare the stamp duty owed on a document, rather than waiting for an LHDN officer to raise the assessment. Each document has to be submitted on its own. The relevant form must be selected, the document uploaded, and the details filled in manually before the duty amount is generated.

For many companies, this task lands on the accounts or tax team by default, simply because they already handle the underlying agreements. But e-stamping is not a small add-on task. Every tenancy agreement, service or business agreement, employment offer, and other statutory document must go through its own submission and its own manual entry, and the process can stretch out longer than expected. When agreements arrive faster than they can be processed, they tend to pile up, and manual entry work pulls time away from core accounting and tax duties.

In practice, businesses have also found that submissions can be sent back for review with little explanation, that reaching the assigned officer to clarify the issue is not always easy, and that a different officer may handle each submission, sometimes classifying the same type of document differently from one submission to the next. This adds further delay on top of an already manual process, and makes it harder for an internal team to plan around.

This matters because the law does not go easy on delay or error. A document not stamped within the set timeframe attracts a penalty calculated as a percentage of the duty involved. An incorrect submission can also lead to a penalty equal to the duty that was underpaid. Businesses that regularly deal with tenancy, business, or employment agreements may find it worth reviewing whether this workload should sit with their internal team, or be handled separately.

If you wish to focus on running and growing your business, our CFO advisory team can take care of your accounting, payroll, tax planning, e-stamping, corporate secretarial and compliance matters for you. Feel free to WhatsApp us at 010-246 2151.