Every eligible Singapore tax payer should have a letter hitting their mailbox from our friend, the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS) on 2 things coming from the Singapore Budget’s Resilience Package.
One-off Income Tax Rebate
So everyone gets a 20% one-off income tax rebate or maximum of $2,000 for tax payable for 2009.
Defer Your Income Tax Payment
You could choose the option to delay your payment for 3 months using your SingPass. Note that you’ll also have to be paying your tax by GIRO to be eligible for the deferment.
Well, 6 month’s isn’t a bad thing (IRAS starts computing in 3 months and starts collecting the instalments 3 months later, making it 6 months in total) for people who might have cash flow problems in the meantime to sort out.
Signing Up
Head to http://www.iras.gov.sg/defergiro
Look out for the big red button on the corner, it looks like this
Pump in your SingPass details and you’re done! Remember, the latest date to sign up for deferment is on the 15th of March 2009, so please don’t miss it :)
Sometimes it’s really impressive and scary to think of how the government keeping tabs on all its citizens with SingPass to all the government portals and statutory boards.
