21 March 2016

The Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS) has introduced a number of enhancements to facilitate individual income tax filing in 2016:

• Filing via smartphones – enhanced smartphone filing available from March 2016
• Personal reliefs eligibility tool – on-the-spot confirmation to determine if taxpayers meet qualifying conditions for reliefs
• Pre-filled rental expenses for owners of tenanted residential properties – amount of deemed rental expenses based on 15% of gross rent has been prefilled on the online tax form. For those with more than one property, the option chosen, either the pre-filled 15% or actual rental expenses incurred will apply across all their tenanted properties.
• Pre-filled income information for commission earners (including real estate and insurance agents – applicable to those organisations that submitted their records under the e-Submission of Commission Income Scheme.

Should there be no changes to the pre-filled income and relief claims, taxpayers who are on the No-Filing Service (NFS) scheme can also preview their Notice of Assessment (available within three days upon request) and request for an early assessment from March 2016.

Taxpayers, including sole proprietors and partners, are reminded that their income tax returns need to be filed by 18 April 2016 (online) or 15 April 2016 (for paper returns) unless they have been informed by the IRAS of their eligibility for NFS.

Source: IRAS