Winter Solstice - the important festival day right before Christmas

Every year right before Christmas, there is an important oriental festival day fall on the Winter Solstice (冬至) which pronounced as Dong Zhi and directly translated to "extreme of winter". The Winter Solstice in 2009 is 22 December.

In Northern Hemisphere where China is located, the Winter Solstice is the day with shortest daylight (about 10 hours) and longest night (about 14 hours), which is the critical day of "Ying", when the solar celestial longitude reaches 270 degree and the sun has the lowest position in the sky. After this day, the daytime will become longer and longer, as more and more "Yang" re-entering. In Chinese saying is "阴极之至，阳气始生，日南至，日短之至，日影长之至".

After this day, the weather in the Northern Hemisphere will become cooler and cooler, until 9 x 9 = 81 days later, which is the last day of winter when the Chinese farmers start cultivating their farms again.

The Winter Solstice is an important festival to Chinese, which has equal significance with the Chinese New Year.

Similar to Chinese New Year, the Winter Solstice Festival is also a time for the Chinese family to get together, and eat the balls of glutinous rice named as Tang Yuan (汤圆) symbolizing "reunion". The Korean also practises similar culture too.

Traditionally, all the family members will make the Tang Yuan together using glutinous rice powder. Nowadays, ready made Tang Yuan is also available in the supermarket/hypermarket, and modern family just buy instead of making themselves. The Tang Yuan is boiled in water (with some brown sugar or salt, and pandan leaves) before consume in bowl.

Beside celebrated by oriental people, the Winter Solstice is celebrated globally, and the festival day might differ a little bit from the Chinese. Some Western Winter Solstice Festival fall on the Christmas Eve, and celebrated together with the Christmas Festival.

In fact, the celebration of Winter Solstice in mankind has longer history than Christmas, and people like Isaac Newton believed that the date of Christmas was selected to correspond with the Winter Solstice.

Taxable amount from company car, petrol card, driver, etc.

If your employer provides you a company car, petrol card and/or car driver, you will notice that an amount will be treated as Benefit-In-Kind (BIK) in your EA Form, which is taxable.

The following table shows how the value of such taxable BIK value is calculated.

The annual BIK value of driver provided is RM7,200.

For example, if you are provided with a Honda Accord 2.4 which its cost is fall under the range of RM150,001-RM200,000, and you are also provided with a petrol card but no driver, your taxable BIK income will be RM7,000 + RM1,800 = RM8,800.

If your tax rate is 27%, then you will need to pay RM8,800 x 27% = RM2,376 for this BIK in your income tax. (Note: the maximum personal income tax rate will be reduced to 26% from assessment year 2010 onwards.)

This amount is normally already divided and deducted in your monthly PCB deduction.

Maximize your 2009 personal income tax deduction

Now we still have until 31 December 2009, which is less than one month time, to utilize and maximize any of the following income tax relief and/or deduction items for 2009.

• EPF contribution and life insurance premium (max RM6,000)
• Education and/or medical insurance premium (max RM3,000)
• Skim Simpanan Pendidikan Nasional (max RM3,000)
• Parent's medical expenses (max RM5,000)
• Annual medical check-up (health screening) for yourself, spouse and/or children (max RM500)
• Course fees for technical, vocational, industrial, scientific, technology, law, accounting, Islamic financing trainings at tertiary or postgraduate level (max RM5,000)
• Books, magazines, journals and other similar publications, either printed or electronic format, excluding newspaper (max RM1,000)
• Purchase of new computer, applicable once every 3 years (RM3,000)
• Sport equipments for any sport activity defined in Sports Development Act 1997 (RM300)
• Donations to approved institutions (max 7% deduction from aggregate income)
• Interest expended to finance purchase of residential property, with S&P signed between 10 March 2009 and 31 December 2010, and the residential property is not rented out (max RM10,000)

Note that if you subscribed for the deferred annuity retirement insurance scheme, you will get an additional RM1,000 relief under Section 49(1) of Income Tax Act 1967. Otherwise, the maximum relief under this category will remain as RM6,000 only. (applicable to assessment year 2010)


Do remember to keep all the relevant receipts for tax assessment purpose.