Singaporean man charged tax at Malaysian border for speaker bought two years ago

A Singaporean man was surprised when Malaysian customs officers charged him tax on a speaker he had purchased in 2024 while he was driving into Johor Bahru.

Norvin Ong, a balloon artist and content creator, shared the incident in a video, saying he had found the speaker while cleaning his office and decided to take it home, according to Shin Min Daily News.

Having used the device only once, he placed it back in its original box before setting off. At the Malaysian border, a customs officer stopped his car and inspected the trunk, where he discovered the speaker and asked Ong to produce a purchase receipt.

Ong initially struggled to locate it but eventually found it inside the packaging. The receipt showed that he had bought the speaker for S$185 (US$144) two years earlier.

The officer calculated a 10% tax of RM59 (S$18.50), which Ong agreed to pay.

When offered the option of paying by cash or credit card, Ong chose the latter because he had just over RM10 in his wallet.

However, he said he was instructed to wait until midnight before making the card payment. After waiting around 10 minutes, he completed the transaction and left the customs complex.

"I don't know why it is necessary to wait for that time to make the Visa payment," Ong said, as quoted by AsiaOne.

In his video, he questioned whether travelers arriving at 10 p.m. would similarly be required to wait two hours before being allowed to pay.

The incident sparked discussion online, with some commenters speculating that the delay might have been caused by the payment system's end-of-day processing, which could be disrupted by additional transactions.

According to the Royal Malaysian Customs Department, travelers entering or leaving Malaysia must declare taxable and prohibited goods, as well as relevant cash holdings and negotiable monetary instruments, whether carried personally or stored in luggage or vehicles.

Travelers entering Malaysia by land or other non-air routes are generally entitled to duty exemptions for eligible goods valued below RM500, although certain products, including cigarettes, are excluded.