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The Ministry of Finance will be conducting public consultations on the draft GST (Amendment) Bill 2009. This exercise will run from today to 24 Jun 2009.

Proposed Amendments

2. The draft GST (Amendment) Bill 2009 incorporates the following tax changes:

a) Budget 2009 tax changes - These are tax changes announced during the 2009 Budget Statement.

1. Zero-rating treatment will be extended to all aircrafts used wholly for international travel as well as the sale and lease of aircraft parts forming part of a qualifying aircraft; and
2. GST will be suspended on goods temporarily removed from Zero-GST or Licensed warehouses for auctions and exhibitions.

b) Other tax changes - These are the refinements to existing tax policies and administration resulting from on-going reviews of the tax system.

• Registration of a trust will be in the name of the trust to ease GST administration for trusts;
• The current GST treatment for physical vouchers will be extended to all forms of vouchers including electronic vouchers such that GST is accounted only at the point where these vouchers are redeemed for goods or services. This will ease GST compliance for taxpayers; and
• Taxpayers will be required to state their grounds of objection when applying for a review or revision of a decision made by the Comptroller of GST. This is in line with requirements under Income Tax Act and Property Tax Act, and will facilitate the Comptroller's expeditious review of taxpayers' applications.

For further explanation of the various amendments, please refer to consultation documents in the annexes.

Consultation Details

3. The public can access the consultation documents together with the explanations for the draft GST (Amendment) Bill 2009 on the Ministry of Finance's website (www.mof.gov.sg) as well as the REACH consultation portal (www.reach.gov.sg). Respondents may send their comments to the Ministry of Finance directly via the website, email, fax or post.

MINISTRY OF FINANCE