Singapore's tax filing rate hits record high of 95%

Thanks to online filing services.

According to the Inland revenue Authority of Singapore, this year’s tax filing rate is a record high of 95%.

About 900,000 taxpayers e-filed their returns by 18 April. Including 27,000 taxpayers who filed paper returns and 1.13 million taxpayers who were on the No-Filing Service (NFS) this year, the overall filing rate is up from last year’s 94%.

Assistant Commissioner, Taxpayer Services Division, Wang Teck Leng said: “We make it convenient for taxpayers to fulfil their filing obligations.

Besides the No-Filing Service that made filing a non-event for more than one million taxpayers this year, we had e-Filing service centres located island-wide, and many online channels for taxpayers to self-help”.

About 22,000 taxpayers received filing assistance from IRAS officers stationed at e-Filing service centres located island-wide. These centres provided greater accessibility to taxpayers and encouraged them to e-File.

Another 43,000 taxpayers received tax filing help at Revenue House during office hours.

Over the years, IRAS has introduced a number of self-help services to facilitate tax filing. This tax season, about 32,000 taxpayers checked out the interactive online filing guides at the new e-Learning Portal (eLearn.iras.gov.sg).

These guides allowed taxpayers to find out how to go about reporting income or claim reliefs under various scenarios.