Knowledge & Insights

Singapore individual taxpayers would be used to filing their tax returns by mid-April. This year, the original deadline was 15 April 2020 for paper filing, and 18 April 2020 for e-filing.

In addition to the slew of measures announced by the Deputy Prime Minister in Budget 2020 as well as the subsequent Resilience and Solidarity supplementary Budget Statements, on 4 April 2020 the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (“IRAS”) announced an extension of the filing deadline for individual taxpayers to 31 May 2020. Besides this extension, earlier on 26 March 2020 in the Resilience supplementary Budget Statement, the Deputy Prime Minister had also announced an automatic three-month deferment of income tax payments by companies and self-employed persons to ease their cash flow during this trying period. Employees who are not self-employed persons may also apply to IRAS for a three-month deferment.

Apart from the extension of the filing deadline for individuals to file their income tax, corporate tax payers filing their estimated chargeable income (“ECI”) are also given an extension of time to file their ECI from the original deadline of 30 April 2020 to 31 May 2020.

Goods and Services Tax returns due to be filed on 30 April 2020 can now be filed by 11 May 2020.

These extensions reflect IRAS’s support for the “circuit breaker” measures announced by the Prime Minister on 3 April 2020 for all non-essential businesses to cease operations from 7 April 2020 till 4 May 2020 to stem the rise in COVID-19 infections. With the extension, individuals and corporates can focus their efforts on coping with the challenges brought about by COVID-19 and deal with tax matters later.

If you would like information on this or any other area of law, you may wish to contact the Partner at WongPartnership whom you normally work with or any of the following Partners:

TAN Kay Kheng
Head – Tax Practice
d +65 6416 8102
e kaykheng.tan@wongpartnership.com
Click here to see Kay Kheng’s CV.

TAN Shao Tong
Partner – Tax Practice
d +65 6416 8186
e shaotong.tan@wongpartnership.com
Click here to see Shao Tong’s CV.