Thursday, March 29, 2012

Make it easier to submit income tax returns


Sent to Straits Times Forum Page on 24 March 2012

I want to thank the Inland Revenue Authority for making it easy
for taxpayers to submit their income tax returns.

I hope that the Authority can continue to simplify the submission in the
following areas:

a) Make it possible for the taxpayer to view the details of the 
remuneration that have been submitted by their employer or other
paying party. Where the details have not been submitted, show 
a remark "not yet received". This allows the taxpayer to know that 
the remuneration will be provided directly by these parties.

b) Allow individual taxpayers the option to claim for repairs, maintenance, insurance, 
commission and property tax at a certain percentage, say 20% of the 
rental income. This saves the hassle of keeping the detailed expenses and
is probably a fair estimate of the outgo, except for mortgage interest 
which can continue to be reported separately. 

I hope that, in the future, the Minister for Finance can consider waiving 
rental income from the computation of income tax, as the Government is 
already collecting property tax at quite a high rate.

Tan Kin Lian

1 comment:

yujuan said...

Presently, our only discontent with IRA is pegging owner occupied property tax rate with rental rate that the property would command renting out.
Very unfair for owner occupiers, as if the property could generate a phantom rental income. The 4% rate payable pales in comparison with the ever increasing annual value.
IRA is far too greedy.

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