Under Singapore’s Income Tax Act, all employers are required to prepare and file employee earnings and tax forms for all their employees who are employed in Singapore, by 1 March each year.

Who needs to submit IR8A?

IR8A form alerts IRAS of their employee earnings. It is a mandatory form that ALL Singapore firms have to fill out for EVERY worker, which includes:

• Full-time resident employee
• Part-time resident employee
• Non-resident employee including those who are based overseas and are required to render service in Singapore during the year (exclude details of employment income where clearance has been filed)
• Company director (including a non-resident director)
• Board members receiving Board/Committee Member Fees
• Pensioner
• Employee who has left the organization but was in receipt of income in 2023 (e.g. stock options gains)

Who is exempted from filing the IR8A?

• Foreign employees who didn’t work in Singapore for the calendar year.
• Employees who were based outside of Singapore for the entire calendar year and worked wholly outside of Singapore
• Foreigners who have left the company where the filing of Form IR21 (to notify the authorities about your non-citizen employee leaving the job/country) is required.

What are the forms to Submit:

• Form IR8A – It is required for ALL employees.  You are required to fill in additional forms provided that they meet the following criteria.
• Appendix 8A – Unless the benefits-in-kind are granted an administrative concession or exempted from Income Tax, employers have to declare all benefits-in-kind provided to employees aside from their salary.
• Appendix 8B – This form must be completed for employees who received profits from Employee Stock Option (ESOP) Plans or other forms of Employee Share Ownership (ESOW) Plans.

• Form IR8S – This form must be completed if you have made excess CPF contributions on your employee’s wages and/or have claimed a refund on excess CPF contributions.

How do I submit the forms?

If you are under AIS:

The forms should be filed electronically via the AIS to IRAS. This scheme automatically incorporates data into the employee’s income tax, which saves time for both employees and employers. Additionally, we recommend giving each employee their own copy of the submitted form for their records.

If you are NOT under AIS:

Before 1 March, you shall give your employees the IR8A and appendices for them to file independently to IRAS. Employers need not submit the forms to IRAS. However, we do not advise doing this because it only just throws an extra burden on both employees and employers.

What if I made a mistake in the forms?

Of course, data accuracy should be ensured by double-checking all information before submission. However, if you have made a mistake in the submission, you must submit amendment files immediately by:

• only preparing the records of affected employees
• providing only the difference in amounts
• leaving other numeric fields not affected by the error blank
• If the amendment for the appendices (IR8S, Appendix 8A/8B) affects the figures submitted for Form IR8A, an IR8A amendment file must be submitted as well
• notifying employees of amendments

Late Filing Consequences

Filing tax income on time is important. If not, you may face penalties such as paying extra tax, facing legal consequences, or even being summoned to Court. Failure to comply may result in a fine of up to $1,000 or imprisonment of up to 6 months under Section 94 of the Income Tax Act.

How can we help? 

Tax filing can be time-consuming and tedious especially if you are new to Singapore Income Tax and using a manual process on payroll management.  Outsourcing your payroll to Techlinker Asia, you will no longer have to worry about it.  We can help you manage your monthly payroll, CPF submission, SDL processing, annual IR8A filing, and IR tax clearance.

Your Benefits are:

• Digitalizing your payroll process which is 100% compliant and can minimize human errors
• Freeing up your time so you can prioritize more important tasks
• Being Hazzle-free as we integrate directly with IRAS’ server to submit employment income information

The new taxation year starts in January.  It is the best time to consider outsourcing your payroll to a professional outsourcing provider like us.  Contact us and we are delighted to help you.