In Financial Year (FY) 2015/16, IRAS collected $44.8 billion in tax revenue, 3.2% more than the collection in FY2014/15. Tax compliance in Singapore remained high and tax arrears low at 0.62% of net tax assessed. Cost of collection was also kept low at 0.83 cents for every dollar collected.

Taxes for Nation-Building

Income Tax (Corporate Income Tax, Individual Income Tax and Withholding Tax) collection registered an increase of 4.4% from FY2014/15, and represented 55% of IRAS’ collection. Corporate and Individual Income Taxes grew 3.3% and 3.4% respectively from the previous financial year.

GST collection increased marginally to $10.3 billion from $10.2 billion in FY2014/15, while Property Tax collection increased slightly by 2.7% to $4.5 billion. Stamp Duty collection remained at $2.8 billion. Betting Taxes collected in FY2015/16 was $2.7 billion, 4.9% higher than that for FY2014/15.

Breakdown of IRAS' FY2015/16 Collection by Tax Type

The revenue collected goes toward supporting the Government’s economic, security and social programmes in achieving quality and inclusive growth and advancing the various nation-building initiatives as outlined in the Singapore Budget.

Breakdown of Government spending by sector in FY2015/16¹

Excellent Service and New Initiatives Helped in Enhancing Voluntary Compliance

New service initiatives, as well as system and process enhancements, contributed to taxpayers’ ease of filing and paying taxes. During the Individual Income Tax Filing Season 2016, taxpayers could, for the first time, file their taxes on-the-go using their smartphones. IRAS also introduced an interactive online tool for taxpayers to check if they qualified for certain personal tax reliefs.

Taxpayers are now also able to check the tax balance of a property using the owner’s address and NRIC, making it easier especially for caregivers and those who pay property tax on behalf of their parents. The introduction of an e-Appointment system enabled taxpayers to better plan their time when there was a need to meet up with tax officers.

We also extended the convenience of e-Filing of Form C and Form C-S to all companies from June 2015. This helped more companies to benefit from reduced compliance costs and productivity gains, while enjoying the convenience of going paperless.

Singapore’s taxpayers continued to file and pay on-time, contributing to a 96%-high on-time filing rate by individuals, and 82%-high on-time filing rate by companies. When it came to payment, Singapore’s taxpayers were equally socially responsible, with 90% of individuals as well as corporate taxpayers paying on time.

Deterring Non-Compliance

We continued to establish a strong and effective presence to deter non-compliance among the small group of taxpayers who deliberately provided inaccurate or incomplete information about their business/employment activities, to reduce their tax liability or to obtain tax credits or refunds unlawfully. In the Financial Year, we audited and investigated some 11,450 taxpayers and recovered over $411 million in taxes and penalties in FY2015/16.

Highlights of FY2015/16 Annual Report at a Glance

Please refer to Annex A for more highlights from the Annual Report FY2015/16.

Tax Statistic at a Glance

The latest tax statistics are available here.

¹Source: Singaporebudget.gov.sg – “Analysis of Revenue and Expenditure (Financial Year 2016)”; Note that the expenditure estimates do not include Special Transfers and spending from Government Endowment and Trust Funds.

Annex A