Ah ha! You have finally decided that having a job is not quite your cup of tea and you will be better off being an entrepreneur. Perhaps, you are a seasoned SME director who would like to understand more about your obligations in running a company. Or you may even be based oversea, but thinking of entering into Singapore market. Regardless which group you are in, please allow Yanto Wong to share the statutory reporting requirements in running a business in Singapore in this article. I will also share the due date for each of them.
There are several basic statutory reporting requirements that all companies in Singapore will need to comply. In general, we can classify them into two groups. The first group will be those data which will need to be submitted to the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS). The second group will consist of those data which will need to be provided to Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (ACRA).
As a freelance accountant and also accounting tutor based in Singapore, I do find the best method to learn is through real-life example. Therefore, we will use a private limited company with financial year from 1 January 2019 to 31 December 2019 to illustrate the different types of statutory reporting requirements and when they are due for submission. We will also consider this company as a GST (Goods and Services Tax) registered company. Kindly also note that there may be specific statutory reporting requirements which may apply to different companies. Kindly confirm with your accountant on that. Alternatively, do feel free to check out with me and I will be more than happy to assist you.
1. Goods and Services Tax (GST) Returns
If you are running a GST registered company in Singapore, submitting GST return will be the very first statutory reporting requirement which you will need to comply after the company begins a new financial year on 1 January 2020.
(A) When To Submit
The output and input tax for the period from 1 October 2019 to 31 December 2019 will need to be accounted for to the IRAS no later by 31 January 2020. The company will need to submit GST Returns every 3 months. The subsequent due dates for submissions will be on 30 April 2020, 31 July 2020, 31 October 2020.
(B) How To Submit
GST registered company needs to file quarterly GST returns by using Form 5. You can access this form by logging in to IRAS myTax Portal and select Business Tax. Please have your CorpPass details ready.
There are 13 boxes (or fields) which need to entered for the purpose of submission of GST Return. For those companies which have adopted accounting software, these data can be easily extracted from the system.
As this is a general article on statutory reporting requirements for businesses in Singapore, I will share the details in a separate article specific to GST in the future. Nevertheless, should you have a time-sensitive GST related matters which you would like to know, do feel free to drop me a quick note here.
2. Estimated Chargeable Income (ECI)
Estimated Chargeable Income (ECI) is an estimate amount of corporate tax payable to IRAS for the financial year from 1 January 2019 to 31 December 2019.
(A) When To Submit
The due date for this statutory reporting requirement to IRAS is on 31 March 2020, i.e. 3 months after the financial year end of the company.
B) Companies Which Need To Submit ECI
Not all companies in Singapore will need to submit ECI. For companies with revenue not more than $5 million for the financial year, i.e. from 1 January 2019 to 31 December 2019 based on our example and its estimated chargeable income is nil, there is an exemption by IRAS to file ECI. The company will therefore need to submit Form C or Form C-S directly. I will elaborate more about Form C and Form C-S at the later part of this article.
3. Annual General Meeting (AGM)
Annual General Meeting (AGM) is a meeting conducted each year between the shareholders of the company. The company in our illustration needs to conduct AGM by 30 June 2020, i.e. within 6 months after the year end. This is also the time when the financial statements wiil be presented to the shareholders. Therefore, it is important to ensure that the financial statements for the year ended 30 December 2019 is ready by then.
4. Annual Return (AR)
The company must submit Annual Return (AR) to ACRA by 31 July 2020. The purpose of submitting annual return is to confirm and updates the details about the company should there be any changes.
5. Corporate Tax Return
Beside submitting ECI, a company will need to submit the actual corporate tax return to IRAS by 15 December 2020 if the company chooses to e-file.
The above five are basic statutory reporting requirements which all businesses in Singapore need to comply. This article is an introductory article and I will continue to update them to include as many details as possible. I do hope it offers help in running your business. Do check back often for the updates! 🙂
Original Article written by Yanto Wong
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