Public Consultations

INTRODUCTION

1. The Ministry of Finance is seeking public feedback on the five proposed legislative amendments under the draft Goods and Services Tax (Amendment) Bill 2012. We invite you to comment on the proposed amendments in the Amendment Bill.

2. Your views on the legislative amendments that give effect to the policies announced in Budget 2012 will help us improve the draft legislation with regard to its clarity or its implications for efficiency of compliance by taxpayers.

3. We also welcome your comments on some proposed policy changes and consequently, proposed legislative amendments that were not announced during the Budget.

SCOPE OF THE CONSULTATION EXERCISE

4. The draft GST (Amendment) Bill 2012 covers a tax change announced in the Budget Statement 2012 as well as other changes to existing tax policies and administration resulting from on-going review of the GST system. These include:

   Budget 2012: GST exemption for investment-grade gold & precious metals

   1. exempt the import and supply of investment-grade gold and precious metals from GST;

   2. introduce a new Approved Refiner and Consolidator Scheme to relieve cash flow for refiners and local consolidators and enable them to claim input tax to make the first exempt supply of investment-grade precious metals after refining;

   Other tax changes:

   3. extend the scope of GST zero-rating of prescribed financial services relating to goods situated outside Singapore;

   4. allow the Comptroller and Minister to set conditions when granting GST remission;

   5. extend the Temporary Removal Scheme to goods removed temporarily from approved warehouses for repairs;

   6. allow zero-rating of repair services performed on qualified goods outside the Approved Specialised Warehouse;

   7. technical change to zero-rating relief for specified supplies made to Approved Marine Customers, and specified supplies made to overseas persons relating to specified goods kept in an Approved Specialised Warehouse; and

   8. technical change to the Approved Contract Manufacturer & Trader (ACMT) Scheme.

5. The summary table lists all the tax changes and explains the amendments to the GST Act.

GUIDELINES

6. We would appreciate your full support and participation to ensure that the consultation exercise is productive. Respondents are requested to observe these guidelines:

   1. Please identify yourself and the organisation you represent (if any) so that we may follow up to clarify any issues, if necessary;

   2. Make your comments clear and concise;

   3. Please use the prescribed template provided to help us understand your feedback better;

   4. Your comments should focus on how the legislative amendments can be better written to make them clearer and to make compliance easier; and

   5. As far as possible, please explain your points with illustrations, examples, data or alternative formulations of the amendments.

7. This draft legislation is released only for the purpose of consultation and should therefore not be used for individual or business decisions as it does not represent the final legislation or regulations. All comments received during the consultation exercise will be reviewed thoroughly and, if accepted, will be incorporated into the Bill for introduction in Parliament.

PERIOD OF CONSULTATION

8. The draft GST (Amendment) Bill 2012 together with the draft subsidiary legislations for the changes in paragraph 4 (a) to (c) are available for public consultation from 9 July 2012 to 27 July 2012. We regret that comments received after 27 July 2012 will not be considered as they will be too late for incorporation into the final Bill.

FEEDBACK CHANNEL

9. We encourage all interested participants to submit your comments via our online submission form. The online submission form is the easiest and quickest way for your comments to reach us.

   You can also send us your comments, using the prescribed template, through:

   1. email to pc_gstabill@mof.gov.sg; or

   2. fax to 6337 4134; or

   3. post to:

      Ministry of Finance
      100 High Street, #10-01
      The Treasury
      Singapore 179434

SUMMARY OF RESPONSE

10. We will publish a summary of the main comments we receive on the Ministry Of Finance’s website, together with our responses, by September 2012. The identity of respondents will not be disclosed in the summary.

DOCUMENTS TO DOWNLOAD

11. For further reference, please click here to download the relevant documents relating to this public consultation exercise.

    If you do not already have Adobe Reader or Microsoft Word, please download the software for free here: [pdf] [word].