GST Compliance of Private Limited Companies in Singapore: The Key Takeaways

As GST is a consumption tax and is borne by the end consumer, it is not treated as a cost to the company. Businesses only collect the tax on behalf of the Singapore tax authority, IRAS.

As a GST registered company, you need to collect GST from your customers for the goods and services provided by you and then pay the collected sum of the tax to the tax authorities. The invoiced GST must be paid quarterly through the GST tax filing. You can only charge and collect GST once you have done your GST registration in Singapore .

Registration for Singapore’s Goods and Services Tax  can also be done voluntarily if your business is not liable for compulsory registration. However, it must be done after careful consideration and depending on your business operations.

Additional conditions apply for voluntary GST registration and once voluntarily registered, you must remain so for at least two years and comply with all GST regulations.

As a business, if 90% of your taxable supplies are zero-rated (exported goods and imported international services), IRAS approves your application for an exemption from registration, even if your taxable turnover remains above the registration threshold and if your input tax is greater than your output tax.

After getting GST registered, you need to charge GST on all taxable supplies at the prevailing GST rate excluding supplies that come under the customer accounting category.

The GST charged and collected by you is known as output tax and should be paid to IRAS within one month from the end of the accounting period.

As you are registered for GST, you can put a claim on the GST that you paid for your business purchases including imports and expenses and file it as input tax in your GST return. However, you must fulfil all the applicable conditions for claiming this input tax.

Concerning GST filing and payment, the Statutory compliance Requirements for Singapore  GST registered companies are:

GST return to IRAS must be submitted within a month from the end of each prescribed accounting period. The accounting period is determined quarterly.

Both the output tax and input tax must be filed in your GST return and the difference between output tax and input tax is the net GST that is either payable to IRAS or refundable to you by IRAS.

If you are on a GIRO plan for GST payment, GIRO deductions are on the 15th day of the month after the payment due date.

Without a GIRO plan, GST filing and payment must be done within a month from the end of the quarterly accounting period.

If a special GST accounting period applies in your case, the return submission deadline is one month from the last date of the special accounting period.

Systems must be established by GST registered companies to track their transactions, and effectively plan and utilize their available resources to submit their GST returns on time.

GST filing is done online and businesses can e-file GST F5 one day after the accounting period ends.

The deadline for filing and payment is normally not extensible however as an exception, can only be granted to newly registered businesses under certain circumstances and an application for an extension must be made at least 3 working days before the due date of filing along with the necessary supporting documents.