Get professional help for filing with ACRA and IRAS
After successful incorporation of a company in Singapore, the company directors and owners need to ensure compliance of the annual regulatory requirements by the relevant government bodies of Singapore such as ACRA and IRAS. It is extremely important for companies to make sure they are in compliance to avoid the consequences. This is perhaps the reason why every foreign company should hire a professional consultancy firm or agency to help smoothen the whole process, including but not limited to the filing process. Rules and regulation that must be met are being laid out in the Singapore Companies Act.
Failing to meet any of the regulation will incur penalties and fines, which can affect the company’s branding and image negatively.
The returns filing guidelines and timeframe in Singapore are stipulated by two bodies – namely ACRA and IRAS. ACRA is an acronym for the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority while IRAS stands for the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore. ACRA for annual returns filing, while IRAS for tax returns filing.
To ensure compliance, most companies in Singapore employ the services of an experienced professional service provider. Such a firm may also offer the company expert help and guidance through every step of the filing process. This ensures that the company stays in compliant. If the company secretary is a professional in the legal profession who is a member of an accounting body (such as ACCA or ISCA), or even secretaries body (for example ICSA) and so on, then he or she may also help in keeping the company compliant with ACRA and IRAS.
When you engage the services of a professional business consultancy firm such as J Accounting, they will handle all of the company’s compliance matters. This allows the directors and management of company to concentrate on growing their business.
Annual Filing with ACRA
ACRA is a government body that supervises and enforces the companies’ regulations in Singapore. According to Singapore Companies Act, all incorporated companies with the financial year end after 31 August 2018 must file their annual returns with ACRA within 7 months of the financial year end, as well as hold their AGM within 6 months from the fiscal year end (unless exempted from AGM). Companies file their annual returns using an online filing system known as BizFile.
An ACRA annual return filing is a company’s document that contains updated information of the:
- Company name and registration number
- Status of the entity, e.g. solvent or insolvent, active or dormant for the year
- Details of the company officers (directors, secretary)
- Registered address of the office
- Primary and Secondary activities of the company
- Shareholder details, paid up share capital and so on
Some companies must also file their annual financial reports and statements to ACRA, unless they are exempted from doing so. More often than not, it is usually highly recommended to file the company’s financial statements such as in XBRL format, which is sometimes called the XBRL financial statements.
Annual Filing with IRAS
IRAS is the Singapore government agency that is responsible for collecting taxes. Every company in Singapore must file annual tax returns with IRAS whether or not they are generating revenue, active or dormant company. The only time when you do not need to file is when you have obtained waiver for filing your corporate tax.
IRAS annual tax returns are made of two filings:
- Estimated Chargeable Income
This must be filed within 3 months of the company’s financial year end. Failure to file the estimated chargeable income within the stipulated time amounts to non-compliance. If a company fails to comply, IRAS can send it a note of assessment (NOA) that shows the company’s estimated income. Therefore, for a company to avoid penalties and further actions, it should pay the estimated income within 30 days even if it does not agree with the estimate.
However, if it does not agree with the assessment, it can send IRAS a notice of objection stating proper reasons for late filing or failure to file. Nevertheless, the company will still pay the taxes on estimated chargeable estimate usually within 30 days.
- Corporate income tax return
For paper filing, this one should be filed by 30th November and 15th December every year for electronic filing. To prepare the corporate tax returns, accounts and financial statements must have already been completed for the year. Corporate income tax non-compliance can happen when the company fails to file the tax returns with IRAS, i.e. it fails to file form C or form C-S with IRAS by the stipulated due date given. Fines and Penalties will be incurred for being late in filing.
Always keep your records up to date and stay in compliance with the authorities of Singapore. If you need assistance with filing for ACRA and/or IRAS, J Accounting will be able to take care and help you with this.
