Singapore's No-Filing Service To Benefit Half A Million Taxpayers

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

06 March 2009

The Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS) has estimated that this year’s No-Filing Service (NFS) will benefit about 493,000 individual taxpayers as they may not need to file a tax return to the authority.

Instead, individuals will receive their Notices of Assessment from IRAS directly.

For those on GIRO instalments, it means no action is required of them at all, making tax paying a non-event for them.

The NFS was first introduced in 2007 to about 45,000 taxpayers and was extended to about 332,000 taxpayers last year.

These are taxpayers who only have auto-included income and claim the standard tax relief items. They do not need to file a tax return unless they have other income that has not been auto-included (e.g. rental income, income from free-lancing) or have changes to make to their tax relief claims.

This service is made possible by the numerous simplifications made to the individual income tax system over the years, and with more employers submitting salary information of their employees directly to the IRAS under the Auto-Inclusion Scheme for Employment Income (AIS).

According to data from the IRAS, employees whose employers are in the AIS find it easy and convenient to file their tax returns as their employment income information is already provided to IRAS directly by their employers.

This year, about 8,500 employers are on the AIS, up from last year’s figure of 6,300.

With 2,200 more employers in the AIS, another 220,000 taxpayers do not need to provide their employment income when they file their tax returns this year, bringing the total number of taxpayers benefiting from the AIS to 960,000.

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