Which form(s) does IRAS want you to file for Employee Income Tax?

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Editor’s Note: This blog post, originally written in December 2019, has been updated to reflect the latest regulatory changes for the year 2024. Thank you for your continued support.

So you received a reminder from the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS) to file your Employee Income Tax?

You then decide to head over to the IRAS website but there’s information everywhere and different tax forms to get familiar with. You’re not quite sure which form(s) IRAS wants you to fill. Where do you even start?

Start by knowing what forms are for Employee Income Tax Filing.

You don’t want to waste your time filling up the wrong forms that are really for Individual Income Tax Filing or Corporate Income Tax Filing after all.

With regards to Employee Income Tax Filing, employers must prepare:

  1. Form IR8A
  2. Appendix 8A
  3. Appendix 8B; and/or
  4. Form IR8S (where applicable)

for employees employed in Singapore. The e-Submission of Employment Income is due on 1st March, every year.

Which Employee Income Tax form(s) do I fill for my employees?

Let’s make it easy! Simply take this short quiz to find out which forms are applicable to you and your employees.

Questions you may have as you take the quiz:

How does IRAS define Benefits-in-kind?

They are benefits that the employer provides to the employee. Do note that these benefits are usually not part of an employee’s salary. E.g. housing/hotel accommodation, motor car benefit and insurance premiums for personal insurance and certain group insurance policies. 

It is also important to not confuse benefits-in-kind with basic benefits like annual leave and sick leave. For more information on examples of Benefits-in-kind where the value needs to be reported, just refer to and fill in Appendix 8A. We also recommend taking a look at the benefits-in-kind that are exempted from income tax!

What is an Employee Stock Option (ESOP) plan?

To put it simply, these plans are contracts between a company and its employees that give employees the right to buy a specific number of the company’s shares at a fixed price within a certain period of time.

What is an Employee Stock Ownership (ESOW) plan?

In essence, an ESOW is a retirement plan in which the company contributes its stock (or money to buy its stock) to the plan for the benefit of the company’s employees.

  • Also, the employee never buys or holds the stock directly while still employed with the company.
  • But what if an employee retires, becomes disabled or dies? Also, what about terminated employees? In these cases, the plan will distribute the shares of stock in the employee’s account.

I’ve done the quiz! Where do I get the form(s) I need?

If you’ve missed out on downloading the forms from your quiz results page, you can still get them by clicking into relevant hyperlinks in the table below! Be sure to note your results and when in doubt, feel free to refer to this summary of what the different tax forms are for.

Form IR8A is filed by employers to IRAS to report all employees’ wages to the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS).Appendix 8A is filled for the employees who were provided benefits-in-kind, from hotel accommodations to insurance premiums. 
Appendix 8B is filed for employees who derived gains/profits from Employee Stock Option (ESOP) plans and/or other Employee Share Ownership (ESOW) plans.Form IR8S is filled only if employers have: Made excess CPF contributions on their employees’ wages, and/or have claimed or will claim a refund on excess CPF contributions

Need a step-by-step guide on how to complete Form IR8A? Check out our piece on IR8A Simplified For Employers!

What’s next after I’ve filled the relevant forms?

The next step is tax filing submission!

Whether you are under the Auto-Inclusion Scheme (AIS) for Employment Income will determine your tax filing submission process. So, how does the process differ?

I am under AIS for Employment Income and specified under paragraph 3 of the gazette In this case, you must submit your employees’ income information to IRAS electronically by 1 Mar every year under the AIS. 

The information you submit will be shown on your employees’ electronic tax return and will be automatically included in their income tax assessments. 

In other words, you need not issue hardcopy Form IR8A and the appendices to your employees.

Learn more about the Auto-Inclusion Scheme (AIS) for Employment Income.
I am NOT under AIS for Employment IncomeThen you’ll have to provide the hardcopy Form IR8A and appendices (where applicable) to your employees by 1 Mar each year to file their income tax returns. 

You need not submit the forms to IRAS. 

Overwhelmed by the work ahead this Tax Filing Season? Automate your filing.

It is taxing to manually sum up 12 months worth of payroll details and worry over reporting any information incorrectly on the form.

Talenox is integrated with AIS to help employers ease through the annual IR8A submission process. 

With Talenox, you won’t need to download an IR8A .txt file to validate through IRAS Auto-Inclusion Scheme (AIS) Java programme and upload it separately to myTaxPortal. After all, you can now submit tax directly via our direct integration to IRAS! It takes just one click to send your tax details over.

Talenox will even help you ‘remember’ to prepare the form for employees who ceased employment before the year ended. It’s easy to overlook this obligation, especially if turnover is significant. 

Automate your payroll and submit your Form IR8A now for free. Simply sign up for a 30-day FREE TRIAL with Talenox.

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