You will be able to check pre-filled information and add what IRAS does not have.
For the last three years, Darren has received the same message from IRAS each spring: he had been selected for the No-Filing Service, so he didn't need to file a return. He took that as good news and did nothing. It was only after lesson 5.3, Side income and other income you must declare, that he wondered how IRAS could know his return was complete when it had never heard of his Saturday tuition.
It couldn't. The No-Filing Service means IRAS believes it already has your income. It isn't a statement that you have nothing else to declare. This lesson sorts out what IRAS receives automatically, what it never sees, and what you must add yourself.
Most of the figures on an employee's return come from someone else.
Under the Auto-Inclusion Scheme, participating employers send each employee's income for the year straight to IRAS, including salary, bonuses, allowances and, where the employer reports them, benefits in kind and share gains. That figure is pre-filled in your return. Lesson 1.3, What counts as income from your job, covered what it should contain.
Several reliefs and deductions arrive the same way. CPF relief on compulsory contributions comes from the CPF Board, as lesson 2.1, Reliefs you get without asking, explained. Donations made with your NRIC come from the charities, as lesson 2.4 showed. NSman Relief comes from the ministries. Information on SRS contributions and CPF cash top-ups is generally passed to IRAS too, and appears as pre-filled relief.
Pre-filled doesn't mean correct. A missed employer, a wrong bonus, a relief copied forward from a year when it applied: each of these can sit in the pre-filled figures. Reading the fine print: payslips, statements, policies and contracts, lesson 4.2, Check your income and reliefs before you pay, shows how to check them against your own documents.
Some taxpayers are placed on the No-Filing Service. IRAS selects them because, as far as it can tell, all their income and reliefs are already known from employers and other sources. If you're on it, IRAS issues your notice of assessment from that information without you filing anything.
The catch is that IRAS only knows what it receives. If you're on the service but you had income it hasn't seen, or you qualify for reliefs it hasn't given you, you must tell IRAS by filing or updating your details through the IRAS portal, within the filing period. Staying silent when you know something is missing leaves your assessment wrong, and the responsibility for that sits with you.
That was Darren's situation. His salary was reported by his school, his reliefs were automatic, and so IRAS put him on the service. His tuition income never reached IRAS, so his assessments had been missing it for three years.
Some income is never pre-filled because no one reports it to IRAS for you. Rental income, from a room or a whole property, which lesson 5.2 covered. Income from a side business, freelance work, tutoring or platforms, from lesson 5.3. Foreign income that Singapore does tax, such as income received through a partnership, from module 6. And employment income from an employer outside the Auto-Inclusion Scheme, which you'll find on the IR8A they give you.
The same goes for reliefs that depend on facts IRAS can't see. A first claim for Parent Relief, a new claim for a child, Grandparent Caregiver Relief: if it isn't pre-filled and you qualify, you add it.
IRAS sets a filing deadline each year, which is published when filing opens. It differs depending on whether you file online or on paper, and the dates can change. Check the current deadline on the IRAS website when you get the notice that filing has opened, and put it in your calendar that day.
If you're not on the No-Filing Service, filing late can bring penalties, and IRAS can issue an estimated assessment that may be higher than your actual tax. If you are on the service and have something to add, the same filing period applies to you.
Darren logged in, opened his return, and found that he could file even though he'd been told he needn't. He added his tuition income and expenses for the year being assessed. He also made a note that the two earlier years needed fixing, which lesson 7.2, Mistakes, amendments and objections, covers.
For the activity, log in to your IRAS account and write down which items were pre-filled last year and which you added, or should have.
Log in to your IRAS account and write which items were pre-filled and which you added last year.
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