You will build a full list of your reliefs and rebates with conditions and who claims each.
By the end of module 2, Shu Ting had notes scattered across three places: a page about Wen in her phone, a message thread with Darren about their mother, and a sticky note about Marcus's reservist training. None of it would help her next spring unless it was in one list she could open beside her return.
This exercise builds that list. Plan on thirty minutes, plus one conversation with whoever shares reliefs with you. Have your last notice of assessment, your rebuild sheet from lesson 1.4, Rebuild your tax bill from scratch, and the IRAS list of reliefs for the coming year of assessment open.
Add a new tab to the workbook from lesson 1.4 and give it these columns:
Relief or rebate: its name as IRAS writes it Condition: the test that decides whether you qualify, in your own words Amount from IRAS: the current figure, or the rule for working it out Automatic or claimed: whether IRAS fills it in or you must add it Who claims: you, your spouse, a sibling, or a split you have agreed Action before 31 December: anything you must do by year end for it to count
Leave a final column for notes, such as the date you checked a condition and the IRAS page you read.
Open the IRAS page that lists every personal relief and rebate, and take them one at a time. For each, read the condition and ask whether it will be true for you in the calendar year you are planning for; skip the ones that clearly won't, and add a row for anything that might.
Work in the order the earlier lessons did. Start with the reliefs you get without asking, from lesson 2.1: Earned Income Relief and CPF relief. Then the spouse and child reliefs from lesson 2.2, the parent and caregiver reliefs from lesson 2.3, and the NSman, life insurance and donation items from lesson 2.4. Add the rebates at the end, because they come off the tax itself and behave differently.
Watch for reliefs that no longer exist. IRAS removes reliefs from time to time, and older articles and colleagues still mention them. Course Fees Relief, for example, has lapsed, so a course you pay for now won't earn relief, however many people tell you it does. If a relief doesn't appear on the current IRAS list, it doesn't go on yours.
Copy each amount from the IRAS page for the year you are planning for. Memory and old notices go out of date. Where the amount depends on a rule, such as Working Mother's Child Relief, write the rule.
Some rows will have more than one possible claimant: Qualifying Child Relief can be split between parents, Parent Relief between siblings, and the Parenthood Tax Rebate between spouses.
For each shared row, take each person's marginal rate from their own rebuild sheet and work out what the relief saves in their hands. Then agree the split, write it in the "who claims" column, and tell the other person what you've written. The point is that both returns say the same thing.
Shu Ting did this with Darren over the phone. Using the invented amounts from lesson 2.3, the relief for their mother saved S$550 in her hands against S$270 in his, so they agreed she would claim. She wrote "Shu Ting, agreed with Darren" and the date in the row.
A few reliefs and deductions depend on something you do before 31 December. Donations count in the year you give them. CPF cash top-ups and SRS contributions, which modules 3 and 4 cover, must be made by the end of the calendar year to count for the next year of assessment. For any row like that, write the action and a date in early December in the last column.
Her list ended up with eleven rows. Earned Income Relief and CPF relief, both automatic. Qualifying Child Relief and Working Mother's Child Relief for Wen, both hers to claim. The Parenthood Tax Rebate, shared with Marcus. Parent Relief and Grandparent Caregiver Relief for her mother. The relief for an NSman's wife, pre-filled. Donations, automatic through her NRIC. And two rows with December actions: a possible CPF top-up and a possible SRS contribution, both waiting for module 3 and 4.
One row came off: Spouse Relief, which lesson 2.1 showed no longer applied once Marcus was earning. Four rows were new compared with last year: the two child reliefs, Parent Relief and Grandparent Caregiver Relief. Using her 10% marginal rate and the example amounts from earlier lessons, Qualifying Child Relief and Parent Relief alone came to S$950 of tax a year, before the two reliefs whose amounts she still had to look up.
Your list will look different, and it may be much shorter. A short list is a fine answer, as long as you checked every relief to get there. For the activity, build your own version, agree the shared rows, and note the reliefs that are new for next year.
Build the list, agree any shared reliefs with family, and write the reliefs you will claim next year that you did not claim last year.
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