We refer to the letter ‘税务局外的遭遇’ (Lianhe Zaobao, 28 April 2014).

We apologise for the unpleasant encounter Mr Liu had with the Auxiliary Police at Revenue House on 15th April 2014. We have reminded our service providers who were directing the traffic to be professional and polite when handling members of the public.

Mr Liu suggested that IRAS should allow cars not entering the car park to drive through the inner road leading to Revenue House from Thomson Road instead of blocking off one of the lanes to traffic. We have studied all options, based on our experiences in the past, and have found that the current approach of blocking off the opposite lane when heavy traffic is anticipated is the best option for safety reasons to prevent accidents from occurring.

We wish to take this opportunity to encourage taxpayers to avoid contributing to the heavy traffic flow during last day of filing by submitting their returns or documents on-line through myTax portal at mytax.iras.gov.sg. For those who need to submit paper documents, they can mail their documents to IRAS postage-free, and therefore need not visit Revenue House to submit their tax returns, forms or documents.

Finally, taxpayers who need to come to Revenue House to seek assistance can come anytime from 1st March of the year, and avoid the heavy traffic by not waiting until the very last day on the 15th April of the year.