Goods and Services Tax Imposed on Sales in Singapore

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Goods and Service Tax, commonly abbreviated as GST, is defined as a consumption tax imposed on the sale of most goods and services. It also includes taxes imposed on all imports into Singapore.
The main objective of implementing GST is to lower the corporate income and personal tax rates, along with shifting the reliance from the normal direct taxes to indirect taxes. This tax implementation would be lucrative for attracting many international investors while at the same time maintaining a sustainable economic growth that would create more job opportunities.
GST was introduced first on April 1st 1994 at a rate of 3%. In 2003, the rate was increased to 4% and it was even further increased to 5% in 2005. Moreover, it currently stands at a rate of 7 percent.
However, there are some special cases where the above rate does not apply, and GST remains at 0%. For example:
• Export of goods
• Supplier shipping products to a foreign address
• Services categorized under International Services
• Airplane tickets
• And local estate agent(s) selling house(s) in Australia
How do GST works?
GST is a tax that the end-consumer of a product/service meets and does not add on to the cost(s) of the company. In this case, the company in question just acts as an intermediary between the government and the consumer and its duty is to collect the said tax. In addition, GST has been designed to include output tax and input tax. Ideally, output tax is the tax collected by the seller on the sale of goods or services and input tax refers to that tax acquired on expenses and business purchases, which include import of goods. In this regard, this article presents a clear relationship between the above taxes and the following are eminent:
1. Retailer
A retai...

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...able for people to register their companies voluntarily since they can claim input tax incurred. However, the following conditions must be met if a company has to claim any input tax:
• It should be GST-registered
• Goods/services must be supplied or imported by you (the company in question)
• Input taxes are directly related to out-of –scope supplies or taxable supplies
• Goods/services must be used exclusively for business purposes
• Claims are not from any of the expenses stated under GST-Regulation 26 and 27
However, the benefit that one receives for being GST-registered outweighs its costs. For instance, most companies have realized a tremendous increase in administrative costs of keeping records. Therefore, directors of such companies should come up with a cost-benefit trade off. For more information, one can visit http://www.iras.gov.sg/irashome/default.aspx.

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