Three taxpayers who pay their taxes by GIRO have won themselves the top three prizes of $20,000, $10,000 and $5,000 respectively at the “GIRO Your Tax Lucky Draw 2011”. Mdm Halimah Yacob, Deputy Secretary-General of NTUC, who was the Guest-of-Honour at the live draw event at Marine Square this afternoon, presented the prizes to the lucky winners.

The top three winners are Mr Ali Bin Mohamed (54, Retired Police Officer), Mr Cheah Way Mun (62, Eye Specialist) and Mr Sathya Bharathi Natrahjan (38, Engineer).

Mr Ali, top prize winner of our first lucky draw shared that he has been using GIRO for the past seven years.

“In the past, I used to pay cash and there’s always a long queue to make payment. With GIRO, it’s more convenient. I plan to use the lucky winnings to sponsor my son’s honeymoon.”

“GIRO is indeed a hassle-free way of payment, I’m going to bring my family on a vacation with the winnings,” said second prize winner Mr Cheah.

Mr Sathya, third prize winner shared, “I’m on GIRO as it is a green way of making payment, didn’t think I would win something! I really enjoyed myself.”

A total of $65,000 was given out in the first of the three annual lucky draws. Apart from the top three winners, there are another 100 winners of $200 consolation prize and 100 winners of $100 consolation prize. Two more lucky draws with cash prizes totalling $115,000 and $180,000 will be conducted in May 2012 and 2013 respectively. The lucky draws are open to all individuals who sign up for GIRO now or who are already on GIRO to pay their property tax or income tax. The longer one stays on GIRO, the higher the chances of winning in the lucky draws.

The lucky draw is part of IRAS’ three-year ‘GIRO Your Tax’ promotion campaign to encourage taxpayers to pay their taxes by GIRO. GIRO enables taxpayers to save time by doing away with the need to remember to write the cheque to meet the billing due date or queue up at payment kiosks. Instead of having to pay their taxes in full within 30 days of the notice of assessment, IRAS’ GIRO Scheme allows taxpayers to enjoy up to 12 interest-free instalment payments. In terms of refunds, taxpayers on GIRO will also obtain them faster, as the refunds can be credited directly to their accounts instead of having to wait for the cheques to arrive in the mailbox. They can be assured that they maintain full control over their money at all times, even when they take up the GIRO scheme. A taxpayer who wishes to adjust or cancel his GIRO arrangement can simply make a telephone call to IRAS.

For IRAS, GIRO is the most cost-effective collection mode, enabling a higher certainty of tax collection and greater efficiency. IRAS will return to taxpayers what it saves from GIRO through $360,000 worth of lucky draw prizes over the three-year Lucky Draw to incentivise individual taxpayers to pay their taxes through GIRO.

Since the launch on 7 Oct 2010, IRAS has received closed to 100,000 GIRO sign-ups. To-date, more than 1.2 million taxpayers are paying their taxes through GIRO. By 2013, IRAS targets to raise the GIRO participation rate to 70 per cent, up from the current 55% which works out to an additional 300,000 income tax or property tax GIRO sign-ups.

Easy ways to sign-up

There are many ways to sign up for GIRO. Taxpayers can get instant approval when they apply for GIRO at any AXS station (for DBS/POSB customers) or through Internet banking (for DBS/POSB or OCBC customers). Alternatively, taxpayers may also sign up for GIRO using the payment voucher attached to their tax bill or visit IRAS’ website to download the GIRO application form. For more detailed information on GIRO application, please visit IRAS’ website at www.iras.gov.sg.