1 The Utilisation of Tax Investment Incentives on Environmental Protection Activities among Malaysian Companies Mohmad Sakarnor bin Deris, Sharifah bt Buniamin, Norkhazimah bt Ahmad, Bakhtiar bin Alrazi Department of Accounting and Finance College of Business Management and Accounting Universiti Tenaga Nasional sakarnor@uniten.edu.my Abstract This study examines the types of environmental protection activities (EPA) undertaken by 15 Malaysian companies which are also the participants of the ACCA’s Malaysian Environmental Reporting Award (MERA) and their awareness and utilisation of the tax investment incentives available for such activities. Based on the questionnaire survey, we observe that 69% of the companies involved in the environmental education and waste water management. However, there is no evidence of the companies’ involvement in the safeguarding of habitats, biodiversity and endangered species. In addition, although all but 13% of the companies are aware of the existence of the incentives, where the tax agents play an important role in the information dissemination, only 46% of the companies utilise such incentives. These include the reinvestment allowance (31%), double deduction (19%) and accelerated capital allowance (13%). Surprisingly, only one company is found to have utilised the pioneer status and investment tax allowance. Based on the utilisation of reinvestment allowance per se, an amount equal to RM84,000 is estimated to be the government loss. Keywords: tax investment incentives, environmental protection activities, government loss, Malaysia. 1.0 INTRODUCTION One of the major problems facing the world today is the quality of environment which is constantly degrading. Environmental problems such as open burning, indiscriminate land hill clearings, river pollutions, oil and chemical spills in the ocean, and the extinction of thousands of animal species have increased public awareness of and concern for the adverse impacts of business on our natural environment. Accordingly, there is an increasing pressure now for businesses to be good corporate citizens. In fact, they are not only accountable to shareholders for profit maximisation but also to consider other stakeholders as well. This includes the public at large. Malaysia exhibits most of the environmental problems that are typical of many developing countries such as over-logging of primary forest, air and water pollution, and the dumping of hazardous waste (Perry and Sanjeev Singh, 2001). The destruction of land near Taman Pertanian Bukit Cahaya Seri Alam (Loong, 2005), the illegal logging at the Bukit Beruang’s forest reserve (Hamdan, 2005) and the dumping of ammonia dross