Singapore continues to achieve a high level of voluntary compliance with on-time filing and on-time payment rates of 90% on average across all tax types. 

Tax arrears also remained low at 0.81% of total net tax assessed.

Keeping Our Tax System Simple and Robust 

Individuals

Singapore’s simple and robust tax system has provided certainty for taxpayers. 

In 2011, IRAS introduced a feature that gives taxpayers an instant estimate of their tax liabilities at the point of filing their returns. This feature has since evolved to the Preview of Notice of Assessment (PNOA) – more than 1.3 million taxpayers (or three in five taxpayers) on the No-Filing Service in 2015 were able to preview their tax bills and request an early assessment. 

Companies

To facilitate corporate tax reporting by companies, e-Filing was extended to all companies, regardless of annual revenue, in Jun 2015. Larger companies are now able to e-File Form C and smaller companies can e-File Form C-S. e-Filing helps companies reduce their compliance costs, and raise productivity and efficiency.

Keeping Cost of Tax Collection Low

Cost of tax collection was kept low under one cent, at $0.0082 for every dollar of tax collected. This is 5% lower than that of $0.0086 in FY2013/14.

Deterring Non-Compliance

By tapping on business analytics, IRAS has detected non-compliance more effectively. Our auditors and investigators are able to more accurately match and analyse data, and identify taxpayers with higher risk profiles.

In FY2014/15, we audited and investigated close to 13,000 tax evasion/fraud cases and recovered more than $450 million in taxes and penalties.

Tax Revenue – Collection by Tax Type

In Financial Year (FY) 2014/15, IRAS collected a total of $43.4 billion in tax revenue, 4.4% higher than the collection in FY2013/14. This amount represents 71.3% of the Government Operating Revenue.

Income Tax (Corporate Income Tax, Individual Income Tax and Withholding Tax) collection of $23.4 billion accounted for 54% of IRAS’ collection in FY2014/15. Contributing to the increase were improved corporate profits which raised Corporate Income Tax collection by 5.4% over the previous FY, as well as the 16% increase in Individual Income Tax collection due to higher individual earnings.

Moderate growth in private consumption expenditure drove an increase in GST collection, from $9.5 billion in FY2013/14 to $10.2 billion in FY2014/15, a rise of 7.4%. 

Stamp duty collection decreased from $3.9 billion in FY2013/14 to $2.8 billion in FY2014/15, due to a lower volume of property transactions in the wake of property market cooling measures.

$2.6 billion in Betting Taxes were collected in FY2014/15, representing an 8.9% increase from FY2013/14, due to higher collections from Betting Duty following the upward revision of Betting Duty rate from 1 Jul 2014.

Achievements made Possible from Support of Taxpayers and Stakeholders

“We would like to thank taxpayers and stakeholders for the trust and confidence in our tax system. Taxpayers are supporting nation-building by filing and paying on time. We will continue to simplify the tax rules and filing and payment processes, thereby enhancing voluntary compliance.”

Tan Tee How

Commissioner of Inland Revenue / CEO IRAS 

Highlights of FY2014/15 Annual Report at A Glance

Please refer to Annex 1 for more highlights from the Annual Report FY2014/15.

Tax Statistics at A Glance

The latest tax statistics are available here.

Link to full Annual Report here. 

Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore  

Annex 1 – Highlights of FY 2014/15 Annual Report