28th October 2026 - 6 min read
The Inland Revenue Board (LHDN) has three forms that let you change how much tax your employer takes from your salary each month. TP1 is for tax reliefs, like a new laptop or a gym membership. TP3 is for when you’ve changed jobs during the year, and TP2 is for perks like a company car. You fill them in and hand them to your HR team, not to LHDN.
Without these forms, your monthly tax, or Potongan Cukai Bulanan (PCB), can end up higher or lower than the tax you really owe. That’s because your employer works out your PCB from just your salary, your EPF, and whether you’re married with children. A laptop you bought won’t bring it down, and pay from your old job won’t push it up, so you could wait months for a refund or get a surprise tax bill when you file.
Your employer already counts the RM9,000 relief every tax resident gets, your EPF, and reliefs for your spouse and children if you’ve told HR about them, so TP1 is for everything else. Once your employer adds those reliefs in, the tax taken from your salary goes down for the rest of the year.
Before you send one in, check that your payslip already shows PCB being taken, because TP1 can’t reduce tax you aren’t paying. A single person earning RM3,000 a month with the usual EPF pays no PCB, for example.
The 2026 version of TP1 covers most of the reliefs you’d claim when filing your taxes, plus any zakat you paid outside your salary. Some of the reliefs on the form are:
| Relief | What It Covers | Yearly Limit (RM) |
| Lifestyle | Books, a phone, computer or tablet, home internet in your name, and self-improvement courses | 2,500 |
| Sports | Sports equipment, gym membership, court or facility rental, and competition fees | 1,000 |
| Medical (You, Spouse, Or Child) | Serious illness and fertility treatment, plus up to RM1,000 each for full check-ups, vaccinations, and dental treatment | 10,000 |
| Parents’ Medical | Treatment, dental care, and caregivers for parents or grandparents | 8,000 |
| Education And Medical Insurance | Premiums for you, your spouse, or your child | 4,000 |
| Childcare Fees | A registered childcare centre or kindergarten, for children aged 12 and below | 3,000 |
The lifestyle and sports reliefs have separate limits, so a gym membership doesn’t use up any of the RM2,500 you have for your laptop or phone.
You don’t attach receipts to TP1. Your employer keeps only the form, and you keep your receipts yourself for seven years in case LHDN asks to see them. LHDN also allows you to send in more than one TP1 in the same year, so you can hand in a new one whenever you make another purchase that qualifies.
TP3 is for anyone who changes jobs partway through the year. It tells your new employer how much you earned, how much EPF you paid, and how much PCB was taken from your salary at your previous job, from January until the day you left.
Without TP3, your new employer calculates your PCB as if your new salary is your only income this year. Your earlier pay pushes your yearly income higher than that, so too little tax may be taken each month, and you could end up with a tax bill when you file.
TP3 also has a section for reliefs you already claimed at your old job, so they carry over when you move. Your old payslips should have most of the details you need to fill it in.
TP2 is for benefits in kind, which are perks your employer gives you that aren’t cash. Besides a company car, these can include a place to stay, furniture, a personal driver, club memberships, or insurance your employer pays for.
The TP2 form [PDF] is how you tell your employer the value of those perks, so the tax on them goes into your PCB and is spread across the year instead of turning up as one bill when you file. If your employer doesn’t give you perks like these, you can skip TP2 altogether.
Take a single employee earning RM5,000 a month, with the usual 11% EPF taken from her salary and no other reliefs. Using LHDN’s PCB formula, her employer takes RM110 in tax every month.
In September, she buys a RM2,600 laptop and pays RM1,000 for a year’s gym membership. She sends in a TP1 in October, claiming RM2,500 under lifestyle and RM1,000 under sports. This is our own calculation of how her PCB changes:
| Month | PCB Without TP1 (RM) | PCB With TP1 (RM) |
| January To September | 110 each month | 110 each month |
| October To December | 110 each month | 40 each month |
| Total For 2026 | 1,320 | 1,110 |
She takes home RM70 more in each of her last three payslips, or RM210 in total. Without TP1, she’d still get that RM210 back, but only as a refund after she files her 2026 tax return in 2027.
If she had made the same purchases and sent in her TP1 in March, the RM210 would be spread over ten months instead, which works out to RM21 less tax each month from March to December.
TP1 and TP3 change how much tax is taken each month. They don’t change how much tax you owe for the year. That’s still decided when you file your tax return on MyTax, and you’ll need to claim the same reliefs there too.
LHDN aims to pay e-Filing refunds within 30 working days of filing. By 30 June 2026, the government had refunded RM5.75 billion in excess tax to 3.1 million individual taxpayers, which works out to about RM1,850 each.
Do note that if you claim something on TP1 that doesn’t qualify, or more than the limit allows, your PCB will be lower than it should be, and you’ll have to pay the difference when you file. To stay safe, claim only what you’ve already spent and have receipts for.
You can download TP1 and TP3 from LHDN’s website. Both start with the month and year you want the form to count from, then your employer’s name and tax number, and your own name, IC number, and tax number. On TP3, the employer details are for your old job.
On TP1, write what you’re claiming now in the “current” column and the total you’ve claimed so far this year in the “accumulated” column. Sign the form and hand it to your HR or payroll team, not to LHDN. Your employer then approves it in the last section of the form.
If you’ve just changed jobs, give your TP3 to HR before your first salary is processed. Ask HR when the payroll cut-off date is each month, because a form that arrives after salaries have been processed may only count from the following month.
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Pugaleshwaran Raja Kumaran is a Tax Executive Director at ThinkTX Consultants, with over a decade of experience delivering strategic and practical tax solutions. He advises high-net-worth individuals, multinational corporations, and growing businesses, helping them manage complex tax matters with clarity and confidence.
He has extensive experience across a broad range of tax engagements, including corporate tax compliance, Capital Gains Tax (CGT), withholding tax, stamp duty, Real Property Gains Tax (RPGT), Sales and Service Tax (SST), and advisory on inbound and outbound investments. He also leads practice areas covering tax incentives, tax audits and investigations, private client advisory, tax due diligence, and e-Invoicing advisory, providing comprehensive support across the business life cycle.
Beyond client advisory, Pugaleshwaran actively contributes to the tax profession through writing and speaking on Malaysian tax policy, regulatory developments, and industry best practices. His work has been published by the International Bureau of Fiscal Documentation (IBFD) and Wolters Kluwer (CCH), including contributions to Malaysia’s Sales and Service Tax (SST) content updates.
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As a trusted tax partner of RinggitPlus, Pugaleshwaran reviews and verifies Malaysian taxation content to ensure it is accurate, compliant, and relevant for everyday Malaysians.
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