Press Releases

1. The Ministry of Finance (MOF) and the Singapore Accountancy Commission (SAC) jointly invite the public to provide feedback on the proposed regulations under the SAC Act. The public consultation exercise will run from 30 May to 26 June 2016.

Background

2. Under the SAC Act (at Annex 1 pages 71-76), an accounting entity may describe itself as a Chartered Accountant of Singapore and use the initials “CA (Singapore)” after its name. Under section 25A of the Act, a non-accounting entity may apply to SAC to use the professional designation and initials. SAC may approve a non-accounting entity’s application if the following conditions are satisfied:

   1. one of the primary objects of the entity is to provide such accounting services as may be prescribed;

   2. not fewer than two-thirds of the partners of a firm/ limited liability partnership (LLP) or directors (including the Chairman) of a company must be chartered accountants, or at least one of the partners or directors must be chartered accountants where the firm/ LLP or company has only two partners or directors; and

   3. the entity meets such conditions as may be prescribed.

Proposed Regulations

3. The proposed regulations (at Annex 2) set out the list of prescribed accounting services (in paragraph 2(a) above):

   1. auditing and assurance services;

   2. financial accounting services;

   3. financial management services;

   4. internal audit services;

   5. taxation;

   6. management accounting services; and

   7. taxation services.

4. The proposed regulations also set out the condition (in paragraph 2(c) above) that “an entity must provide at least two of the prescribed accounting services”.

Public Consultation Details

5. The public can access the consultation documents on MOF’s website (www.mof.gov.sg), SAC’s website (www.sac.gov.sg) and the REACH consultation portal (www.reach.gov.sg). Written comments can be sent to:

   Singapore Accountancy Commission
   10 Anson Road
   #05-18 International Plaza

   SAC Email: enquiries@sac.gov.sg (preferred mode)
   SAC Fax: 6226 3386

6. We will publish a summary of the comments received together with our responses by August 2016. The summary will not disclose the identity of respondents, and will not individually address or acknowledge every comment received.

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Documents for Download

Annex 1: Amendments to the SAC Act (pages 71-76)

Annex 2: Proposed regulation under the SAC Act

^[1] Under the new Section 25A, an accounting entity is defined as a "public accountant, an accounting corporation, an accounting firm or an accounting limited liability partnership".