Filing and Processes > IRAS Filing

In terms of s 68(2) of the Income Tax Act, all employers must prepare and submit to IRAS Form IR8A and Appendices 8A and 8B or Form IR8S, where applicable, for every employee by 1 March each year.

Employers falling into certain categories are required to submit electronically under the Auto-Inclusion Scheme (AIS). For more information about which employers fall into the AIS, please visit the IRAS website.

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AIS for Employment Income

Under AIS, employers submit their employees’ income information to IRAS electronically and, therefore, do not need to provide employees with hard copies of the above forms. Employees can view their employment income on their payslips and their auto-included income via the Income, Deductions and Reliefs Statement (IDRS); however, employers may wish to provide employees with a statement of earnings for their records.

As stated above, certain employers are compelled to participate in the AIS – such employers who have not received any notification from IRAS should contact IRAS immediately via email.

IRAS encourages all employers falling outside the above categories to join the AIS voluntarily. Registration can be done via the IRAS website.

Generating the IR8A in SimplePay

Please ensure that all payslips for the relevant period have been finalised.

You will also need to add any outstanding Take-On Balances from the relevant employee’s payslip screen by:

Going to the employee’s profile.
Clicking on Take-On Balances under Edit Info.

Please note: This is necessary if payslips were issued to employees before you started using SimplePay.

Once this is done, to generate the IR8A:

Go to the Filing section on the sidebar menu.
Click the IRAS Filing (IR8A etc.) tab.
Under the Filing Season menu, select the relevant end date (e.g. 2019-12-31).
You can view an employee’s IR8A by clicking the PDF icon under View next to their name, or you can view All Tax Certificates.
You can edit certain information, including Bonus declaration date and information applicable to Director’s Fees, on each IR8A by clicking the Edit link next to the relevant employee. You can also enter the total Benefits in kind value here. This will then allow you to complete the matching Appendix 8A document detailing the benefits for the employee later.

Please note: SimplePay currently does not support generating Appendix 8A, 8B and IR8S. You will be able to complete and submit them on myTax portal.

If you have an employee who is set as a foreign director under Basic Info and the employee received income that is categorised as Director’s Fees. In that case, you can also edit their IR8A to state whether Section 45 is applicable to the employee. The system will automatically add together the Director’s Fees pulled from payslips with the Director’s Fees that are entered on this page to determine the total Director’s Fees that need to be reported to IRAS.

Select the Exclude from submission checkbox if you will not be using SimplePay’s information to submit to IRAS. See more info below.
When you are sure that all the information is correct, you will be able to download a PDF containing the IR8A information.

Excluding IR8As from the Submission

You may need to exclude an employee’s IR8A from the IR8A PDF or from the AIS submission option if you are using another option for filing for that employee. For example, the CPF Data Link-up service can be used to pre-fill information on the myTax portal to submit to IRAS. To exclude these employees from the submission:

Click on the Edit link next to the employee’s name.
Click the Exclude from submission checkbox.
Click Save.

Validating and Submitting the IR8A through SimplePay’s AIS feature

Ensure that In the Auto Inclusion Scheme? is set by going to Settings > Employer Filing Details to ensure that the IR8A is generated correctly for AIS Submissions.

Go to the Filing section on the sidebar menu.
Click the IRAS Filing (IR8A etc.) tab.
Under the Filing Season menu, select the relevant end date (e.g. 2020-12-31).
Select the Click here link under the Filing Season menu to pre-validate your data and avoid filing errors.
If there are no errors, click on the Details link in the IRAS e-Submission box to view a summary of your submission details. Otherwise, you should resolve all validation errors before proceeding to this step.
When you are sure that all the information is correct, select the checkbox I have reviewed the above and am ready to submit. This will enable the Submit button.
Enter the submitter’s Login details and select the Login Type.
Select the checkbox Tax Agent? if you are submitting in your capacity as a Tax Agent. Please note: This checkbox should only be selected if you are an authorised Third Party Entity.
Click Submit.
Use CorpPass to authenticate your IRAS login. Once you have authenticated your account, you will be redirected back to SimplePay.

You’ll then be able to see the status of the submission, as well as additional details, under Submission History in the IRAS e-Submission section. However, employers can also log in to myTax Portal to view the status of the submissions and PAT users can check the status with CrimsonLogic.

Downloading a Reconciliation Report

To verify the information found in the IR8A certificate, you can download a report that includes the IR8A Category, Taxable / Non-Taxable, CPF Type fields, Employees, and their respective Totals (total remuneration for the tax year). Follow these steps to download the report:

Go to the Filing section on the sidebar menu.
Click the IRAS Filing (IR8A etc.) tab.
Click the Excel link under Reconciliation Report.

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