Tourism, arts and culture minister Tiong King Sing has called on the customs department to focus on cracking down on liquor smuggling instead of targeting people’s private collections.
The Bintulu MP said while the Excise Act 1976 states that keeping alcohol for personal use at home is not illegal, the customs department had “confused” the public after an official stated that storing large amounts of liquor at home could be against the law.
Tiong said such comments mislead the public, erode their trust in existing laws, and instill fear.
“The customs department must focus its enforcement on eliminating the smuggled liquor flooding our market, not harassing people over liquor bottles kept in their homes,” he said in a Facebook post.
“The public pay taxes to see real problems solved. If the authorities keep wasting their energy on the wrong things, it will only cause more frustration and resentment towards the government.”
The controversy stemmed from a dialogue session with the Northern Region Liquor Dealers Association in which customs department assistant director V Kamalhasan reportedly said that keeping large personal collections might constitute a violation of the Excise Act 1976.
In a Sin Chew Daily report, Kamalhasan said that any premises used for storing liquor must be licensed, and that collections of up to 30 or 40 bottles at home – often built up over years through special festival editions – were technically not permitted without a licence.
In a Facebook post on Sunday, deputy finance minister Lim Hui Ying clarified that no licence is required for keeping duty-paid liquor at home as long as it is purchased from licensed outlets and kept for personal consumption or collection, not for sale.
She said she had confirmed this policy with the finance ministry’s secretary-general, the tax director-general, and the customs department’s director-general.
In his statement, Tiong asked if the customs department assumed that those with a large stock of liquor at home intend to sell it.
“That seems to be their logic. But the law does not set a maximum limit, and quantity alone should not be the deciding factor.
“To distinguish between private collectors and traders, one must look at whether the person regularly buys the same liquor in bulk – not merely how many different bottles or brands they have.
“Otherwise, by that logic, people who collect branded shoes or toys would also need a licence. That makes no sense!”
