Dotcom sector hopes for tax relief for SMEs to adopt digitisation services

By Azlee Nor Mahmud

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 2 -- The dotcom industry hopes for a double tax deduction measure in the upcoming Budget 2020, preferably in the form of tax relief for the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to adopt digitalisation services during the first year of operations instead of the conventional technology grant.  

Exabytes Network Sdn Bhd chief executive officer and founder Chan Kee Siak said digitalisation methods such as cloud computing, software and tools utilisation services were much needed for SMEs to grow.

“It would be really helpful if the government can allow double deductions for SMEs that adopt some digital services.

“This was similar to 20 years ago when the government needed to encourage the purchase of personal computers (PCs). If you buy a PC, you can deduct from your personal income tax, and you can double deduct or accelerate your capital expenditure deduction as a company, and with that, companies will save and obtain benefits in adopting the technology,” he told Bernama today after Exabytes and US-based Freshworks Inc signed a partnership agreement to help SMEs grow their business.

According to Chan, today is relatively different as the government does not need to incentivise; rather, it needs to ease the integration of cloud services and other digital services to encourage SMEs to go fully into digitalisation.

“They (SMEs) really need to spend on these tools that help to digitalise their products or operations, and once they use the tools, they will continue to improve their efficiencies and grow and scale the business,” he said.

On the partnership with Freshworks, he said Exabytes would offer a suite of innovative customer engagement software from the former, together with a host of its existing solutions, including web hosting, email and digital marketing, to be a one-stop solution provider of cloud-based services for SMEs.

For starters, Exabytes will offer four products from Freshworks that are suitable for SMEs in any industry.

These are Freshdesk-omnichannel helpdesk ticketing system; Freshchat-modern messaging software for sales, marketing, and support; Freshsales-CRM solution and sales system for high-velocity sales teams; and Freshmarketer-all-in-one conversion optimisation suite.

Founded in 2001, Exabytes Network Sdn Bhd is a leading web-hosting and cloud service provider in Southeast Asia.

It specialises in providing services such as cloud hosting, shared hosting, email hosting, virtual private server, dedicated servers, domain name registration, and digital marketing.

California-headquartered Freshworks currently serves over 100,000 small-and medium-sized businesses in 121 countries. The group has more than 2,000 team members throughout the world.

-- BERNAMA