To simplify tax filing and ease compliance burden, self-employed persons, such as commission agents and private hire car (PHC) drivers, can have their gross income information pre-filled in their Income Tax Returns.

Pre-filling of income for self-employed persons (SEPs)

Pre-filling of income for SEPs aims to simplify tax filing and ease compliance burden. IRAS will automatically pre-fill the income information transmitted to IRAS by third party intermediaries (e.g. commission-paying intermediaries) in the SEPs’ Income Tax Returns.

Currently, more than 100,000 SEPs have benefited from this initiative and had their income pre-filled in their Income Tax Returns.

Benefits to SEPs from the pre-filling of transmitted income information from third party intermediaries 

  • Easy and convenient for SEPs to file the Income Tax Returns as income is pre-filled 
  • Minimise errors during the self-declaration process
  • Automatic computation of business expenses based on the Fixed Expense Deduction Ratio (FEDR) if the qualifying conditions are met
  • Qualifying SEPs will not be required to file their Income Tax Returns if they are selected for No-Filing Service (NFS)
  • Facilitate administration of government grants for SEPs

If your organisation is submitting your income information to IRAS, you can view your pre-filled income information in the “Income, Deductions and Reliefs Statement (IDRS)” page when you are e-Filing your Income Tax Return (Form B) at myTax Portal. 

Please verify the pre-filled income information and declare your other sources of income (e.g. rental income), if any. You can amend the 2-line/ 4-line statement at the “Sole-Proprietorship/ Self-employed Income” page under the “Trade, Business, Profession or Vocation” section of the Income Tax Return if your total income is different from the pre-filled income information.


Even if your organisation is submitting your income information to IRAS, you are still required to file an Income Tax Return if:

  1. you receive from IRAS a filing notification via SMS or letter stating that you are required to e-File, or file a paper Income Tax Return; or
  2. your annual net trade income in the preceding year is more than $6,000; or
  3. your total annual income (including employment income and gross rental income) in the preceding year is more than $22,000.

However, you are not required to file an Income Tax Return if you receive an SMS notification from IRAS informing you that you have been selected for No-Filing Service (NFS). You may verify your details by logging in to myTax Portal and have the option to make relevant changes via e-Filing, if needed.

For more details on your filing requirement, you may refer to Individuals required to file tax.

Commission agents

NEW!

With effect from the Year of Assessment (YA) 2024, identified commission-paying intermediaries are required under the law to collect, retain and submit the identification and income information of their commission agents to IRAS. This will facilitate IRAS in pre-filling the income information in the commission agents’ Income Tax Returns.

Commission agents such as real estate agents, insurance agents or brokers, financial advisers, multi-level marketing (MLM) agents and remisiers can use the Commission-Paying Organisation Search to check if their organisations are one of the commission-paying intermediaries identified by IRAS, as well as whether the organisation has submitted their income information to IRAS for YA 2024. If your organisation submitted your income information to IRAS in previous years, they are likely to be required to submit for YA 2024 as well.

Your organisation will submit the total amount of gross income, such as commission, referral fees, training fees, retail profits, allowances, incentives etc. to IRAS to enable us to pre-fill the income information in your Income Tax Returns. If any of these income (e.g. retail profits) are not included by your organisation, you will have to amend the pre-filled information to include them.

For more information, please refer to FAQ on Pre-filling of Income for Commission Agents (PDF, 104KB).

Overseas commission agents

Overseas commission agents are required to e-File their Income Tax Returns (Form B) between 1 Mar and 18 Apr with their Singpass/ Singpass Foreign user Account (SFA) and declare income earned in Singapore if they carried out work or have a permanent establishment* in Singapore.

If their organisations are required to submit income information to IRAS, these overseas commission agents will have their income pre-filled in their Income Tax Returns, which they need to verify, and declare other sources of income earned in Singapore (if any). Overseas commission agents are required to file regardless whether their organisations have submitted their income information to IRAS or whether they have been taxed in the overseas jurisdiction on the same income^.

* Permanent establishment refers to a fixed place of business through which the business of an enterprise is wholly or partly carried on and normally includes a place of management, a branch, an office, etc.

^ Overseas commission agents may suffer double taxation when the same income is being taxed twice - once in Singapore where the income arises and another time in the overseas tax jurisdiction where the income is received. However, if the overseas commission agents are a tax resident of a foreign jurisdiction that has concluded an Avoidance of Double Taxation Agreement (DTA) with Singapore, they may be protected from being taxed twice on the same income in Singapore, depending on the provisions of the DTA. You may refer to the IRAS e-Tax Guide on Avoidance of Double Taxation Agreements (DTAs) (PDF, 258KB) to learn more about the DTA.

Private hire car (PHC)/ taxi drivers

For YA 2024 and before, drivers whose transport service operators are participating in the pre-filling of income initiative can choose to have their driving income pre-filled into their individual Income Tax Returns.

The driving income of the participating drivers will be transmitted by their transport service operators to IRAS electronically. These income components include:

  • Gross Passenger Fares1
  • Incentives/ Rebates2/ Promotion/ Miscellaneous Payments3

1Exclude Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) toll charges and platform fees paid by passengers as these are not treated as drivers' income.

2Exclude Road Tax Rebate (RTR) & Additional Petrol Duty Rebate (APDR) as these rebates should be accounted for as a reduction of business expenses.

3Include one-off relief of $150 paid to eligible PHC drivers in August 2022 if the payout is received by drivers in the form of e-wallet credits as it will be treated as drivers' additional income.

For more information, you may refer to the following: