Up to RM300 income tax deductible sport items

Being proposed for National Budget 2008 (which unveiled on 7 September 2007) and included in the BE Form 2008 as tax deductible item D8C, an amount limited to a maximum of RM300 is income tax deductible in respect of expenses expended by the individual tax payer for the purchase of sports equipment for any sports activity as defined under the Sports Development Act 1997 (Akta Pembangunan Sukan 1997).

The sports equipment includes equipment with short lifespan such as golf balls and shuttlecocks, but excluding sports attire e.g. swimsuits and sports shoes.

So what are the activities considered and defined as sports in the Sports Development Act 1997? Here is the list:

• Archery
• Athletics
• Aquatics
• Automobile Sports
• Badminton
• Basketball
• Billiards and Snooker
• Body Building
• Bowling
• Boxing
• Cricket
• Cycling
• Equestrian Sports
• Fencing
• Foolball
• Golf
• Gymnastics
• Handball
• Hockey
• Judo
• Karate Do
• Lawn Bowls
• Netball
• Rugby
• Sepak Takraw
• Shooting
• Silat Olahraga
• Soft Tennis
• Softball
• Squash
• Table Tennis
• Tae kwan do
• Tennis
• Volleyball
• Waterski
• Weightlifting
• Wrestling
• Wushu
• Yachting

Reference: Sports Development Act 1997

You might probably interested to read these articles as well:

• Make sure your tax exempted allowances are filed correctly in EA Form
• 2009 new income tax PCB deduction rate
• Downloadable documents, references and forms for 2008 income tax assessment

TM promotional RM10/month package for Streamyx user

If you are a residential Streamyx broadband user, here is a good news for you.

Currently, TM is offering a RM10/month telephone package to their residential Streamyx users. By paying RM10/month, you will get:

• Unlimited free local calls to TM fixed lines
• Unlimited free national calls to TM fixed lines
• Flat rate of 30 sen/min to all mobile and other fixed lines

And when you subscribe to this RM10 Package, you will also get a free DECT cordless phone with LCD display.

This package is quite attractive as it can bring savings if majority calls from your home phone are to TM fixed lines (local and/or national, including faxes). However, note that the RM25 monthly fee is still applicable with normal Streamyx plan, and not applicable for Streamyx Combo package.

Note that this is an exclusive limited time promotion plan of TM valid from 1 April to 30 June 2009 only.

Click here for more information on the TM RM10 Package. It is advisible for you to read the Terms & Conditions page as well as the FAQs.

Help to fight hunger by playing quiz in FreeRice.com

FreeRice is an innovative brainchild of a programmer John Breed launched in 2007. It is a website where you can answer a series of multiple-choice quiz questions, and if you answer correctly, the site's sponsors will donate 10 grain of rice to the United Nations World Food Program.

FreeRice has two goals, which are made possible by the generosity of the sponsors who advertise on the website:

1. Provide education to everyone for free.
2. Help end world hunger by providing rice to hungry people for free.

The default quiz is about English vocabulary, and you can take the quiz of different subjects covering art, chemistry, English, geography, language learning, math, etc.

John has won the Harvard University's Berkman Award in 2008 for creating the FreeRice.com website. In March 2009, John has already donated the site to the UN World Food Program. The website is also a winner of Yahoo! Finds of the Year 2007 (Charity Category).

This is not a scam. You can really take the quiz and feed the hungry with FreeRice.com. By 13 April 2009, 62,751,284,800 grains of rice already donated in this interesting way.

Here are some examples of where FreeRice rice has been distributed:

• In Bangladesh, to feed 27,000 refugees from Myanmar for two weeks.
• In Cambodia, to provide take-home rations of four kilograms of rice for two months to 13,500 pregnant and nursing women.
• In Uganda, to feed 66,000 school children for a week.
• In Nepal, to feed over 108,000 Bhutanese refugees for three days.
• In Bhutan, to feed 41,000 children for 8 days.
• In Myanmar, to feed 750,000 cyclone affected people for 3 days.