25 February 2012

On 22 February 2012, IRAS issued an updated edition of the e-Tax Guide, “Stamp Duty Treatment for the Acquisition of Multiple Properties (Second Edition).

The updates in the Guide relate to substituting the title, “Stamp Duty Treatment for Properties Acquired on an En Bloc or Block Basis” in the first edition with “Stamp Duty Treatment for the Acquisition of Multiple Properties” in this second edition. As a result, the wordings have been paraphrased in paragraphs 1 and 2 of the Guide. A new paragraph 3 on has also been introduced on prima facie indicators that the Commissioner will look principally as indicative of a collective sale and purchase of the multiple properties.

This Guide explains the stamp duty treatment where multiple properties are acquired collectively whereby calculation of the stamp duty will be based on the total purchase price of the multiple properties, provided that there is a single contract for the purchase of the multiple properties or that the purchases of  the multiple properties are dependent and conditional of one another.

More on the e-Tax Guide can be found here.

Source: This article was extracted from the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS) website.