TaxPRO Services Pte Ltd

The Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS) is always ready to ‘catch’ tax offenders. It is becoming common to see errant taxpayers ending up in jail. The local newspapers have published reports of taxpayers being prosecuted for tax offences. To avoid the jail sentence, IRAS is asking taxpayers to come forward voluntarily on their wrongdoings.

A typical ‘wrongdoing’ is the incorrect Form IR8A prepared by the company. An example is where taxable benefits-in-kind are not reported in the staff’s Form IR8A. The company is either ignorant of it or assumes that certain benefits given to staff are not taxable at all. This is where the danger lies.

Below are some examples of typical staff benefits which are taxable benefits:

Staff discounts to select group of employees or where the amount exceeds a threshold
Health screening made available to executive staff only
Car parking at office premises

There are many other staff benefits which could be taxable items but were not reported in the Form IR8A. How can you ensure that the Form IR8A prepared is in order?

For more information, please surf www.iras.gov.sg ( go to ‘E-guide , taxpayer audit )

Voluntary Disclosure

We understand that IRAS will be lenient to taxpayers who come forward voluntarily to acknowledge their wrongdoings. The penalty will be lesser as compared to an involuntary case (where IRAS discovers your wrongdoings). But most important of all, it avoids tax prosecution. This is evidenced by the prosecution cases reported in the local newspapers in recent years. The offences may different in each case; however, the message from the Taxman is the same -- come forward voluntarily to admit your wrongdoings and avoid prosecution.

How TaxPRO can help you

TaxPRO is a team of tax veterans from ex-IRAS, ex-KPMG and ex-EY.

We specialize in health checks of the company’s Form IR8A tax reporting. We employ best practices to conduct the health check review, following which, we will issue a report to the company. At the same time, we will provide solutions and recommendations on the ‘errors and omissions’ to the Management group.

We have assisted many companies in this area of expertise and our clients are from the oil, banking, insurance, electronics and health industry.

TaxPRO’s success stories

TaxPRO have submitted many voluntary disclosures to IRAS, on behalf of our clients and have successfully ‘closed’ these cases.

We have conducted a diagnostic review on the benefits provided to our clients’ staff and determine the taxability of the compensation items omitted from the Form IR8A reporting. Following on, we assisted in determining the taxable values of the omitted compensation items, tax loss and the associated tax penalties. Thereafter, depending on the circumstances unique to each case, TaxPRO recommended the best cost-efficient strategy to adopt. We are proud to say that we have successfully obtained the IRAS’ agreement to our negotiated terms on behalf of all our clients.