10 Common Myths About Basic Understanding of Singapore Goods & Services Tax

To all my subscribers, Happy New Year!

On the first day of 2022, I understand that you are busy with the New Year’s Celebration with your loved ones.

Instead of writing on the topics about new year’s resolution, how to set your goals in 2022, I have decided to write my newsletter on this topic because of a call I received from my contact on New Year’s Eve about her liability to register for Singapore Goods & Services Tax (GST). After discussing her situation in 2021, I advised her to register for GST with the Singapore tax authorities, and the deadline for her is 31 January 2022.

Do you agree that it’s the first day of 2022, and yet, there’s not much time left?

With that in mind, I would like to devote the topic “Common Myths About Singapore GST” to this newsletter and trust that it would give you some insights into the complexity of this tax.

Let’s Go Back to 2018

Singapore introduced GST on 1 April 1994, starting from 3% then to 7% now. Our GST law is heavily modeled the UK Value Added Tax and the GST Law in New Zealand if you are interested in the history.

In the Budget 2018, the former Finance Minister, Heng Swee Keat, first mentioned raising the…