Speech by Ms Jessica Tan, Chairperson of the GPC for Finance, Trade & Industry at the ‘GIRO Your Tax’ Grand Draw and Appreciation for IRAS’ e-Filing Volunteers & Partners

Dr Tan Kim Siew
Commissioner of Inland Revenue,

Volunteers and Partners of Volunteer e-Filing Service,

Distinguished guests,

Ladies and gentlemen,

I am delighted to join you this beautiful morning to celebrate two happy occasions. Firstly, we are here to honour the many hardworking and dedicated volunteers of IRAS. These selfless individuals sacrificed their free time to help the community e-File their taxes during the tax season this year. Secondly, we will witness the exciting finish to the 3-year ‘GIRO Your Tax’ campaign with a grand lucky draw. I’m sure you’re just as excited as I am to know who the $50,000 grand prize winner would be!

Volunteerism by the Community, for the Community

Let me talk about IRAS’ Volunteer e-Filing Service first. Commonly known as VES amongst volunteers and partners, this programme plays a vital role in helping IRAS build a voluntarily compliant taxpayer community in Singapore. Indeed, the e-Filing rate this year has reached an all time high of 97%.

As volunteers, your friendly assistance during the critical March to April period greatly helps taxpayers who have difficulty grappling with technology. You make filing taxes a breeze for them. This creates a positive feeling amongst our community, helping them to accept taxpaying as a desirable social obligation.

We have more than 300 VES volunteers this year. Some of you are working tax professionals who find VES an excellent opportunity to give back to the community. Others are students doing your part to serve your fellow residents. Regardless of your background, we know you all have a common desire to make e-Filing easier and more convenient for fellow taxpayers.

Indeed, I understand that many of you have become ‘permanent’ volunteers, serving at our centres year after year. We are proud to have built a strong and close-knit community of volunteers who believe in what IRAS does. Your eagerness to contribute ideas and suggestions attests to your desire to help IRAS – and Singapore – to improve the way it collects taxes. We certainly value your feedback, and will carefully consider your many suggestions to improve the VES scheme and e-Filing system.

Besides our volunteers, IRAS has also benefited from the strong support of friends and partners like Temasek Polytechnic and Ngee Ann Polytechnic, CPF Board and People’s Association. You have all worked tirelessly behind the scene to support the volunteers with the necessary resources and facilities to help the residents. For the polytechnics, you have encouraged and rallied your students to volunteer for this worthy cause.

To recognise the exceptional efforts of our volunteers, we will present Outstanding and Commendation awards to the winning volunteers shortly. We will also honour some long-serving volunteers with Long Service Awards.

‘GIRO Your Tax’ Campaign

Let me now speak about the ‘GIRO Your Tax’ Campaign. Three years ago, IRAS started the ‘GIRO Your Tax’ campaign to increase GIRO participation rate as part of our national effort to raise productivity. As an incentive to encourage taxpayers to pay their taxes by GIRO, IRAS decided to share the productivity savings with taxpayers through lucky draw prizes.

Today marks the end of the 3-year campaign and I am pleased to announce that IRAS has successfully brought in an additional 332,000 taxpayers to the GIRO scheme. While this has been very encouraging, IRAS will continue to work hard to encourage more taxpayers to switch from cash or cheques to GIRO.

Now, allow me to congratulate the 20 ‘GIRO Your Tax’ lucky draw winners who are here with us today! Three of you will go home with the top cash prizes of $50,000, $25,000, and $15,000 this morning! With this final grand draw, IRAS would have given out a total of $360,000 to 1,209 lucky winners over three years.

As a taxpayer myself, I pay both my income and property taxes through GIRO. By doing so, I enjoy the many benefits that GIRO brings. This includes 12 monthly interest-free instalment payments over a year, instead of needing to settle my taxes in full within 30 days of the notice of assessment. I am also assured of paying my taxes on time without worrying about due dates or penalties for late payment.

I encourage all taxpayers to make the switch from paying by cash or cheques to GIRO. In doing so, you will not only enjoy the convenience of GIRO but also contribute towards our national productivity. If everyone uses GIRO, we can do without the need to manually process cheques and cash. This frees up resources and improves the efficiency of the tax payment process. Ultimately, it translates to the better use of taxpayer’s dollars.

IRAS has also created many easy ways for you to sign up for GIRO. You can get instant approval by signing up at AXS stations or through Internet Banking. In fact, ten of you who signed up for GIRO via such electronic modes during the promotion campaign have won yourself an iPad mini each! Congratulations to these ten winners!

Next step: Encouraging corporate taxpayers to pay by GIRO

IRAS will continue its efforts to promote GIRO, like reaching out to new taxpayers who are paying their taxes for the first time. For the next phase, IRAS will also encourage more companies to pay their taxes by GIRO. Currently, only 23% of the 57,000 taxable companies, or 13,500, are on GIRO. There is certainly lots of potential here.

Concluding Remarks

Thank you once again for joining us on a long weekend morning to celebrate two joyous occasions. Do take some time later to visit the various game and food stalls, and spend time enjoying this beautiful park. Have an enjoyable morning and a great weekend ahead!