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Kota Kinabalu: A Malaysian influencer has advised content creators to pay their taxes after he was summoned by the Inland Revenue Board who interrogated him and later determined he hadn't declared his income and owed the agency RM50,000 in taxes.

Shazril Shaharuddin, a medical doctor, who has about 350,000 followers on Instagram and is known as "Dr. Say" online, said he didn't know anything about taxes as the board's officer showed him a file listing all his sponsored social media posts and events Shazril had made or hosted for different brands over the last few years.

"I knew I was busted and I admitted that all the posts were by me," social news site Says quoted him as saying.

The board determined he earned RM160,000 annually, which he didn't declare, when he worked freelance from 2018 to 2019.

The RM50,000 tax bill shocked him, but after digging for some old receipts, which earned him some tax reliefs, he only had to pay RM40,000 taxes in installments.

"No matter how little or much you earn, LHDN is watching," he said. "Don't be like the old me. Fulfill your duty as a responsible Malaysian citizen by paying taxes."