Singapore To Introduce Electronic Tourist GST Refunds

by Mary Swire, Tax-News.com, Hong Kong

01 December 2010

From mid-2011, the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore is to introduce a new electronic tourist refund system (eTRS) that will remove form-filling by tourists at the point of purchase, and make it easy for them to claim goods and services tax (GST) refunds at Changi Airport.

Currently, the tourist refund scheme is either operated by the retailers themselves or through the central refund agencies (CRAs). The paper-based system is burdensome and inconvenient for both tourists and retailers at the point of purchase because of the need to fill refund claim forms. At the airport, tourists have to queue at different counters, including Singapore Customs’ counters and refund counters operated by the respective CRAs, to make their refund claims.

However, it is said that the new electronic Tourist Refund Scheme (eTRS), when fully implemented, will be a major improvement over the current paper-based system. Tourists will experience the same system even when they make purchases from different retailers in Singapore, and can expect a faster clearance process at the airport checkpoints.

The purchase details at the point-of-sale will be captured into an electronic system and tagged into a token (for example, a credit card) carried by the tourist. At the airport, all that a tourist will need to do is to use his passport and token to retrieve records of his purchase details at the validation kiosk and choose to either get his GST refund in cash or paid to his credit card account.

The new eTRS will be implemented in phases from mid-2011. The government is targeting 500 retailers to participate in the pilot phase. The current paper-based tourist refund system will continue to operate until the eTRS is fully implemented in the third quarter of 2012.

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