Singapore collects record tax revenues
The Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore collected a total of SG$43.4bn (US$30.5bn) in tax revenue, in the 2014/15 financial year, a new annual record, reports Tax News.
This record tax revenue was worth 71.3 per cent of total Government Operating Revenue.
According to IRAS’s latest annual report, SG$23.4bn was collected in income tax, which includes corporate income tax, personal income tax and withholding tax, last year, representing 54 per cent of total tax revenue. Individual income tax revenue was 16 per cent higher in 2014/15 compared with the previous year, while corporate tax revenue increased by 5.4 per cent.
The report says that there was moderate growth in private consumption which drove an increase in goods and services tax revenue from SG$9.5bn in 2013/14 to SG$10.2bn in 2014/15, a rise of 7.4 per cent. Betting tax revenue increased by nine per cent to SG$2.6bn following an increase in the rate of betting duty on July 1, 2014.
However, stamp duty collection decreased from SG$3.9bn in 2013/14 to SG$2.8bn in FY2014/15, due to a lower volume of property transactions in the wake of property market cooling measures.
The report also shows that Singapore continues to achieve a high level of voluntary compliance with on-time filing and on-time payment rates of 90 per cent on average across all tax types. Nevertheless, IRAS audited and investigated close to 13,000 tax evasion cases in 2014/15, recovering more than SG$450m in taxes and penalties. Tax arrears stood at 0.81 per cent of total net tax assessed.
IRAS said that the cost of tax collection remains low, at SG$0.0082 for every dollar of tax collected.
