Avoiding the 7 Common Mistakes for the coming individual income tax submission.
With the current individual tax submission round the corner, (paper submission by post before 15 April 2019 and e filing via tax portal before 18 April 2019), you may wish to avoid the following common submission mistakes:
- Did not submit tax filing since you have no income for the preceding year (calendar year 2018 for year of assessment 2019 YA2019)
Even though you did not have an income for the preceding year, you must still submit your original income tax return using the return envelope provided by 15 Apr or log in to mytax.iras.gov.sg to submit your income tax return by 18 Apr. An Acknowledgement Page will be displayed upon successful submission for e-filing. All individuals must submit tax return unless you receive any notification either by way of a letter or SMS about No-Filing Service (NFS) from IRAS that you are exempt from tax submission.
- Did not submit tax filing since your employment income is automatically submitted by your Company under AIS (Auto-inclusion Scheme)
You will still need to submit tax return but you do not need to declare your employment income which is under AIS.
- Declaring your non-employment income eg commission income for insurance/property agent, income for hawkers, private tutor, taxi/PHV drivers, income from online e-commerce sales, sponsorships or income from facebook/google/instagram as influencers as employment income and rental income.
All other non-employment income (payment relating to contract for service, or trading income or other non-trading income) must be reported under accordingly under trading income or other income (rental) and not employment income.
- Did not fill up the amount of reliefs since they are the same as last year.
All reliefs must be elected in every tax submission as they are not automatically given. Ensure you meet the qualifying conditions before you claim for the reliefs.
- Claiming self-employed CPF contribution relief when you are a sole proprietor
CPF relief for a self-employed is automatically given by IRAS based on information received from CPF Board. You need not make a claim.
- Claiming the employer’s CPF amount on your salary as the CPF relief (for employers not under AIS).
The CPF relief amount for your employment income is the employee’s contribution amount for the preceding year, not the employer’s CPF contribution.
- Declaring dividends income received from Singapore resident company
Dividends paid by a Singapore resident company under the one-tier corporate tax system except co-operatives (eg NTUC co-operatives) is exempted from tax and do not need to be reported in your tax submission. Overseas dividends received from foreign company is also exempted from tax and need not be reported.
